


Grace my Soul

by Castielific



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Angst, Dean Winchester is Bad at Feelings, Episode Related, Episode: s09e06 Heaven Can't Wait, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Implied Mpreg, Kid Fic, M/M, Miscommunication, Oblivious Dean Winchester, Post-Episode: s09e06 Heaven Can't Wait, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:34:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25650691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castielific/pseuds/Castielific
Summary: Castiel has been gone for sixteen months when a baby appears in the backseat of the impala.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 94
Kudos: 477





	1. Mistakes were made

**Author's Note:**

> That's it, my second long destiel fic. I hope you'll like it as much as the last one (or even more!). 
> 
> Few things you need to know before you read this:
> 
> \- It's AU from 9x06. The changes to canon are explained in this chapter. 
> 
> \- 9x06 is rendered not-canon by the addition of a missing scene between Cas babysitting and Dean dropping him of at the Gas n' Sip the next morning (come on, we all wondered about that).
> 
> \- I'll add tags as I go along, but there is going to be some soul thing and angel stuffs, as well as my first explicit sex scene. It's just the one (and a half) though, so you can skip it if that's not your thing. 
> 
> \- The mpreg is this is only mentionned, not explicit. 
> 
> \- This story is NOT a wip, it's complete. It's around 36 000 words long. 
> 
> \- Somehow, "you're in my heart" from Rod Stewart fits this story and Destiel very well, so that's were the random verses you're going to see at the top of some chapters are from
> 
> Thank you to underwatertribute for her help. You have no idea how many times she had to tell me "this is not a word" while betaing this. Without her you'd probably need to understand french to get what is going on in my stories!
> 
> Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy it. Please tell me if you do, comments make me very happy ^^

_I didn't know what day it was_  
_When you walked into the room_  
_I said hello unnoticed_  
_You said goodbye too soon_

_************_

Dean throws Baby’s keys in the air, catching them as he whistles happily on his way to the bunker’s kitchen. He has some steaks for tonight, fresh beer in the fridge and his brother is now officially angel free. This is a good day. 

Ezekiel has finally managed to cure Sam and they found him a nice vessel, a forty year old woman who was brain dead. The angel managed to slip inside just as her family were turning off life support and with a little twinkling of the machines, that family gets to grieve while Zek gets a new chance at life. The perfect plan and it went without a hitch. That’s so rare for them that they are definitely celebrating tonight. 

Well Dean is, Sam still doesn’t know he has been possessed. Dean knows he’ll have to tell him at some point, of course he has to, but for tonight he just wants to relax. 

His brother is safe, and soon his best friend will be too. He felt so bad about pushing Cas away like he did. So bad in fact, that he made a terrible mistake that night he went to see him at the gas n sip. He was terrified that he had ruined their relationship, that’s he’s finally managed to break that ‘profound bond’, as Cas called it, between them. He had hurt Cas. When he left that morning, he could see the heartbreak on his friend’s face. Cas deserved an explanation. About why he couldn’t stay and live in the Bunker with them, about why Dean kept pushing him away, about...about so much more. 

Now that Ezekiel is gone, he can finally confess the truth to Castiel. He knows it won’t be enough, he knows it won’t excuse what he’s done, but maybe, just maybe, Castiel will find it in his heart to forgive him. He wants them to go back to how they were before that night, to forget everything that happened those last few months. 

Dean already has planned to prepare a room just for Castiel. He has green paint in the truck of the Impala, because for some reason that’s Cas’ favorite color. He even found a lamp shaped like a bee that he knows Cas will love. Dean will make a nice place for him, in the bunker and in their life. For the first time, Castiel has no reason to leave, for the first time they can stay together. 

Sure, Cas will have to choose if he wants to hunt with them or not. If it’s his choice, Dean will train him. Cas is already a good fighter, he just needs to learn to fight without powers and supernatural strength. He’ll make a good hunter. And if he doesn’t want to hunt, then it’s okay with Dean too. He can still live with them, maybe help them with the books and research like Bobby used to. He knows Cas would be good at that. Or Cas could even find a job if he wants to continue to play human. Dean will support him. All he wants is to have his friend back. 

It’s been three months since he’s even heard from Cas. He knows he’s doing fine because Sam and him exchange messages from time to time, but he hasn’t answered any of Dean’s texts or calls. It’s okay though. He needs his space from Dean. Dean knows he screwed up and he gets it. It doesn’t mean it’s over. It doesn’t mean that Cas won’t come back to him. Dean just wants to prove to him that he cares for him as his best friend. He’s not gone yet, he’ll come back, Dean tries to reassure himself. Dean will do what he needs for this to happen. 

He, Sam and Castiel, that’s the dream. That’s everything he’s ever wanted.

Heaven is closed now, Metatron trapped in it. The fallen angels haven't made any noise recently, probably adapting to their life on earth. He knows they’ll probably cause trouble again some day, but for now it’s quiet. Crowley is keeping a tight leash on Hell so they don’t have to worry about him...well, not as much as usual because Crowley is always a worry in any case. But now Crowley has a human side, Sam’s blood gave him a conscience and he’s willing to help the Winchesters, crushed by the guilt of everything he’s made them live through the last few years. That works for Dean, even if he can’t help but wait for the other shoe to drop. 

The important thing is that right now, there is no apocalypse coming, no big bad threatening them. For the first time in ten years, they can finally breathe a little, lay back and enjoy their normal routine of ghosts and monsters without any epic threat hanging over their head. 

Hell, maybe they could go on vacation for a week or two. Drive to the west coast, dip their toes in the sand for a while. Beach babes in tiny bikinis, cocktails, Sam and Cas. That sounds like a dream, a dream maybe they could try to achieve. Buy swimming suits and just listen to the sound of the waves for a while. Relax. God knows they deserve it. Literally. God _owes_ them. 

Dean stops dead in his tracks when he enters the kitchen. Sam is standing in the middle of the room, back to Dean and his arms engulfing someone. All Dean can see of the other person is a dark tuft of hair picking out over Sam’s shoulder, but he would recognize that mop anywhere. 

“Cas,” Dean gasps. Even though his brother kept in contact with the angel (ex-angel?), Dean is still relieved to see him here, to be able to check by himself that Cas is doing okay. 

Sam releases Cas who looks a little red from having been smothered against the giant moose that is Dean’s brother. Dean still isn’t used to seeing his friend looking so naked. Well, not naked-naked. But Cas without his trenchcoat, wearing only jeans and a hoodie is basically Cas being naked. He looks so much smaller like this, frailer than even the last time Dean saw him at the Gas n Sip and that makes him frown. 

Sam is telling Cas how he missed him and how he still doesn’t understand why he left, reassuring him that he always has a place by their side and...yeah, Dean really needs to explain everything. 

Like he can hear that thought, Cas’ eyes go right to him. Dean swallows because Cas still looks so damn sad every time someone mentions him not staying here. But it’s over now, it can change, so Dean grins at him and steps further in the kitchen. He goes and wraps Cas into a hug. 

“I’m glad to see you, buddy,” Dean confesses, his voice a little muffled into Cas’ neck. 

Dread squeezes his chest when Cas doesn’t answer him. He’s not hugging back, so tense that Dean releases him sooner then he wanted too. He immediately notices Sam’s frown, his brother’s curiosity obviously picked by Cas’ closed off attitude toward Dean. 

“Did you drive here?” Dean says, trying to divert the attention as he steps back. 

“I took a bus.” Cas voice is short. Not hostile, but his eyes don’t quite meet Dean’s. 

“Well, you choose the best day to come back! I brought us premium meat for tonight and some cherry pie. And not some gas station’s cherry pie. Pie from an actual _bakery_ ,” Dean announces enthusiastically, going to the fridge and getting the meat out. 

“You definitely picked a good day because Dean has been in a surprisingly good mood lately,” Sam notes, smiling as he slides on a stool behind the counter. 

“I wasn’t sure I was welcome,” Cas mumbles, barely loud enough to be heard. 

“Why wouldn’t you be? It’s your home too, Cas,” Sam says, sincere. 

Dean focuses on getting the potatoes out of the cupboard. He can feel Cas’ stare on his back, questions and uneasiness heavy in the air. He takes a deep breath, and turns back, his eyes falling immediately into a blue gaze he knows by heart. 

“You are, Cas. It’s your home too,” Dean affirms, throat a little tight. 

Cas seems confused, squinting in that way he has where he inclines his head. Dean can’t blame him for not understanding. 

“Why don’t we all talk about this around dinner tonight? I actually have a surprise for you,” Dean says with a grin. He can’t wait to see Cas’ face when he gives him the bee lamp. 

Cas doesn’t seem happy about it though, his eyes falling everywhere but on Dean as he pales. 

“I actually have something to tell you, too,” Cas says, somber and with an apprehension that makes Dean’s stomach churns with worry. 

Dean doesn’t let it show, forcing a smile on his face again. “That’s a date then!” He bites his cheek at the look that Cas sends him, regretting his wording. “In the meantime, you just spent two days on a bus so why don’t you go take a shower before dinner? You can take some clothes in my room if you need anything.”

Cas just grabs his backpack and goes, Dean frowning after him. 

“Does something seem off about him to you?” Sam reflects out loud. 

“It’s Cas, the dude is always off,” Dean deflects, listening to the bathroom door closing farther down the hall 

Sam sighs. “Dean. What really happened between you? Why did he leave last time? Is it about April?”

“April? The reaper chick? Why would she have anything to do with that?”

“Well, you seemed pretty happy when he first came back, but then he told us he slept with her and the next thing I know he’s gone...”

“What? No! It’s not like that,” Dean protests, sending a glare of annoyance to his brother before he turns back to the counter. He starts peeling potatoes, perhaps a little too aggressively. 

“Are you-”

“We’ll talk about it tonight. Just...go put on the table or something since you’re useless in the kitchen.”

“There goes the good mood,” Sam mumbles to himself as he slides off his stool. 

************

Cas sighs, enjoying the water of the shower, cascading on his head and along his body in a warm caress. He closes his eyes and lets himself enjoy it. 

For months he’s been bathing in communal showers with other men or washing himself in the bathroom of the gas station that he used as his home. Since he’s been human, he only took two warm showers like this, without having to worry about keeping an eye on his bag or avoiding leery looks. 

The first was after April had killed him. It was mostly to wash his own blood from his skin and he hasn’t really enjoyed it. He hated what came after even more. 

_You can’t stay._

The second time...He closes his eyes and he’s suddenly in the tiny beige bathroom of a motel. He can hear Dean puttering in the other room, ordering pizza and surfing channels, searching for a movie that they never ended up watching. He had hope then. After his disastrous adventure in babysitting, he had expected Dean to drop him off at the gas station right away and disappear again, case closed. The hunter drove them there instead, to this motel room with warm water and only one bed. 

Cas’ breath catches and he’s pulled out of his memory when his hand reflexively passes over his lower stomach. It isn’t a good memory either. Or it was, but that night was tainted by what followed the next morning. He chases the memory of Dean's hard stare as he gets into the Impala, ready to abandon Castiel again. He remembers the hunter tense’s hands on the wheel and the jittering of his leg before he forced Cas out of his life again. 

No. It’s not a fond memory at all. 

He tries to close his eyes to enjoy the warm water again, but the moment has passed so he gets out of the shower. 

_Your place is not with them Castiel. You belong with us._

Cas wipes his hair with a towel, hoping it will get Naomi’s voice out of his head. 

Finding out she was alive has been a shock, but not a surprise. Naomi was clever, way too clever to let herself be killed that easily. She had kept a part of her Grace in a failsafe in Heaven growing back slowly until she was able to possess her vessel again. Not only had it saved her life, she was also able to stay in Heaven, to stay an angel as all her brothers and sisters fell to Earth. Thinking himself alone in Heaven, Metatron had been careless in protecting himself and Naomi had no difficulty capturing him. She took all the valuable knowledge from his head before she killed him. She had opened the door of Heaven back to come to earth, but hadn’t told anyone about it or Metatron’s death yet. Only Castiel. 

_I want you to be the first, Castiel. Come back with me. Together we can build a new Heaven. A better one._

Castiel puts his own jeans back on. It’s his only pair and they’re not in prime condition, but he can’t bring himself to put on Dean’s clothes. He takes a clean shirt out of his backpack. Clean is an overstatement because he wore it three days ago and hasn’t washed it yet, but it’s clean enough. Cas looks at himself in the mirror above the sink. 

His skin is flushed from the warm water. His hair is getting too long, but last time he tried to cut it himself it didn't end well. He can’t go to a hairdresser though. He doesn’t trust strangers coming near him with scissors, especially from behind. The memory of hands holding his head back as his neck is cut is still too vivid in his mind. 

He passes his fingers in his dark brown mop of hair, trying to tame it, even if he knows it’s useless; It will get right back up when it dries. He misses the time where he could take care of this body just by blinking. A rush of Grace was all it took to be cleaned, shaven, and dressed anyway he wanted. 

_I can give you your power back. You’ll need it, Castiel. You won’t be able to survive this otherwise._

There are dark circles around his eyes from sleepless nights turning on the ground of the Gas n Sip. His lower back is constantly aching now. His throat is raw from the burn of bile, his insides feel like they’re being squeezed and twisted most of the time, making it hard for him to stand straight. He squeezes the edge of the sink, leaning forward until his nose is nearly touching the mirror in front of him. He looks himself right in the eyes, trying to gather the force to get through this night. 

Castiel has battled Heaven and Hell, he’s come face to face with Archangels and Demons more powerful than him with barely any hesitation. Yet he’s never been more scared of anything than he is of talking to Dean tonight. 

_He can’t protect you, Castiel. He’s not what you need. You need to be with family. We’ll take care of you. He’ll hurt you again. You know he will._

Castiel grinds his teeth, remembering the anger this brought him. Remembering how he screamed at Naomi that _the angels_ were the one that hurt him. He’s been hunted and has fought angels more than against demons at this point. She brainwashed him, manipulated him. 

_You may think I was wrong, Castiel, but you know I am not Evil. I only want what is best for Heaven. I always did. I have made mistakes and so did you. Now it’s our chance to start back from the beginning._

He can’t see himself in the mirror anymore, his ragged breath having fogged it. 

_I need you, Castiel. You need me just as much. But most of all, Heaven needs_ him _._

He shudders when he remembers her hands on his body, how frozen he has gotten, unable to move as her eyes plunged into his.

_You’re the most important angel alive, Castiel. Everyone knows that. And Dean...he’s the righteous man, God chose him Himself, created him to hold his most precious son, making him the most important human to Heaven. Together you two are…_

Cas remembers the earnestness in her eyes. Naomi never liked Dean. She hated him because he was the most valued thing for Castiel when Heaven should be his priority. 

_He’ll be our guide, just as you’ve always tried to be. You’ll be his._

She’s right, he knows she is. Many angels are still holding Castiel as the one true ruler of Heaven, are still trusting him to guide them. And Dean...he’s the true sword for Michael, descendant of the first man, of Cain and Abel, Dean is of Heaven’s royal blood if there ever was one. 

_You and your child will finally bring peace to Heaven. All you need to do is come back, Castiel, and the Host will be yours._

Cas looks down at his stomach, protubing over the edge of the sink. It’s not much, just a little round for now, but there is no doubt in his mind that he’s carrying the most important child Heaven has ever seen. 

The offspring of the rebellious angel and righteous man. 

_  
  
  
_

****************************

Dean let out a contented sigh as he let himself fall back in his chair, patting his stomach contentedly. That was one good meal, damn. He feels like his stomach is going to burst from all this deliciousness. 

“Am I a good cook or what?”

Sam laughs, taking a sip of his beer. “You sure know how to self-congratulate yourself. Also, three pieces of pie, Dean, seriously?”

Dean smirks in answer before turning toward Cas, sitting beside him. His gaze doesn’t reach the man though, stopping on the plate in front of him, still half full and abandoned. 

“You gonna eat that or…?” Dean asks, leering at the piece of pie. 

Cas nudges the plate toward him and Dean grabs it, fork ready. 

“Seriously?!” Sam exclaims, laughing despite the grimace on his face when Dean shoves Cas’ leftovers in his mouth in one go. 

Dean offers him an open mouthed smile full of crumbs in answer before turning toward his best friend. Cas doesn’t seem all there though. He’s sitting more slouched than Dean has ever seen him against the back of his chair, a frown between marring his face as he looks at the table without seeming to see it. He’s rubbing his stomach absentmindedly. 

Cas hasn’t eaten much, but Dean has no idea if it’s normal or not for him, now that he’s human. He does look a little too scrawny, more than he ever was. There is a little pudge on his stomach though, so Dean probably doesn’t have to worry that much. 

“You okay, Cas?” Sam asks, seemingly noticing Cas’ fareway look too. 

Cas blinks out of his daze. He takes his hand off his stomach and straightens. 

“I am, thank you, Sam,” Cas says unconvincingly, taking a sip of his water. 

“You’re sure you don’t want a beer?” Dean asks again. Even as an angel, Cas seemed to enjoy the occasional beer. 

Cas shakes his head once in answer, and Dean purses his lips. His friend has barely talked to him all night, only speaking when addressed and barely even then. He’s obviously not okay, but Dean has no idea how to even start to make him feel better. He tried talking about decorating Cas’ room and maybe hunting, tried to make Cas understand that he was welcome to stay and that Dean was happy he was here. The angel barely seemed to hear it though. Did he not believe it? Did he think Dean was going to send him away again?

Dean knows he has to come clean about Ezekiel, to Sam as well as Cas. He just wanted to enjoy his night and his dinner without the tension the truth would bring. He has no doubt that Sam won’t be happy about it, will probably scream and storm out, but will eventually forgive him. Sam always does. He has no idea how Cas will react. 

Now Castiel looks forlorn and their night doesn’t seem so nice anyway, so Dean should probably tell them right now. He’s terrified that he’ll wake up tomorrow morning and Cas will be gone if he doesn’t. Cas needs to know that Dean wanting him here was never the problem. 

Dean takes a deep breath and puts his fork down. 

“I have something that I wanted to tell you, both of you, about,” Dean starts. He pauses, not knowing how to broach the subject. 

“Actually, I...I need to talk to you, Dean,” Cas says, turning toward him. His hand moves as if to touch the hunter’s forearm but drops before it reaches it. Cas turns to Sam instead. “Sam, do you think you could give us a moment, please?”

Dean opens his mouth when Sam immediately gets up and excuses himself out of the room. So much for _his_ confession.

Cas gets up and starts clearing the table. It’s so foreign and weird to see him do something so mundane that Dean can only watch him in silence for a moment. The plates fall abruptly in the sink and Dean rushes to his friend’s side when he sees him holding the edge of the sink, eyes closed like his head is spinning. 

“Hey, Cas, hey, what is it?” Dean worries, a hand on the small of Cas’ back as the former angel takes a few deep breaths. It looks like his legs are shaking, so Dean tries to put an arm around him to guide him to a chair, but Cas pushes him away, backing up a few steps until the kitchen counter is between them. 

“We need to talk about that night,” Cas declares in a rush. 

Dean blanches. “What night?” he asks, voice strangled. He knows exactly what night Cas is talking about. The night Cas babysat his coworker’s kid, the last night they spent together. His heart is beating fast and his legs tensing with the need to run away just thinking about it. Cas sends him an impatient look, calling Dean on his bullshit. “No, we don’t. We said we would never talk about it again,” he reminds, voice firm. 

“No, _you_ said that.”

“Oh don’t do this, Cas, come on,” Dean warns, exasperated. “I told you it was a mistake. It didn’t mean anything. We _agreed_ that it wouldn’t change anything.”

“Well, it _did,_ ” Cas affirms, jaw clenched. 

“You think I didn’t notice that?” Dean exclaims, making Cas pales. “You’re avoiding me, barely talking to me. I’m _trying_ , here, Cas.”

“And I’m not? I’m here, Dean. I’m...I’m giving you, _us,_ another chance.”

“Us? There is no us, Cas, not like that,” Dean corrects, shaking his head. His word sounds harsher than he meant to, resonating in the heavy silence of the kitchen. 

Cas isn’t looking at him anymore and it’s breaking his heart, but he can’t. He just can’t. That’s not him and that’s not them. It can’t be because then it means...Dean closes his eyes, clenching his fists so hard his forearms cramp. 

“I knew I wasn’t welcome here. I don’t know why I came,” Cas says, sounding defeated. 

“No, hey,” Dean can’t help but reassure, stepping around the counter to get closer. He stops when Cas takes a step back from him, eyes staying firmly behind Dean, jaw working in anger. “You’re always welcome here, Cas. You’re my _best friend_ ,”

“We’re not friends anymore, Dean,” Cas affirms, voice so harsh that it makes Dean gasps, his chest suddenly so tight it’s hurting. 

“Of course, we are. Just because-”

“I was homeless, Dean. For eight months, I didn’t have a home or money and I certainly didn’t have anyone I could count on. No _friend_ ,” Cas repeats, eyes hard on Dean now. 

“I can explain it, Cas. I swear, I had good reasons to-”

“To what, Dean? To abandon me when I needed you the most?” Cas’ voice has raised, but now he seems to deflate, murmuring to himself. “I can’t trust you. I can’t-” Cas shakes his head, looking down his body as he fist the front of his shirt, right above his stomach. 

“Let me call Sam back, I promise I’ll explain everything.”

“We slept together, Dean,” Cas says abruptly. “Are you going to explain to Sam why you thought that was a good idea for one night but then it seemed to become the worst mistake you’ve ever made in the morning?”

“It wasn’t-”

“It wasn’t what, a _mistake_? Because that’s what you’ve called it every single time. Well, the two times you actually acknowledged it, counting this very conversation.”

“Why are you so mad about it?” Dean asks, taken aback. He’s never seen Castiel so agitated, so bitter. 

“I’m not mad, Dean, I’m,” Cas says, despite the anger still in his tone, “I’m mad _at myself_ . I thought...I thought I could trust you with this, but it was a mistake. _My_ mistake.” Cas nods to himself. “I should go.”

Dean catches his arm when Cas tries to get past him. “Cas, come on. This is your home. I want you to stay.” 

“This isn’t my home, Dean. It never was.” Cas tries to advance, but Dean’s hand is still gripping his arm, unable to let go. “I only ever had one home, Dean. I think it’s time for me to go back.” They share a long gaze. Dean’s eyes are begging him to stay, but the right words can’t quite reach his lips. “It’s better for everyone,” Cas concludes. 

  
  


****************

_Sixteen months later…_

“She was so beautiful, Sam. Her skin the color of cappuccino with curves at all the right places and so many _pockets_.”

“Yeah, I get it, Dean, you loved that coat,” Sam says, rolling his eyes. “I’m sorry, okay, but what was I supposed to do, let that vampire eat you?”

“You could have waited until he wasn’t above me to cut his head, that’s what,” Dean says, his eyes leaving the road he was driving on just long enough to send a reproachful look to his brother beside him.

“His teeth were inches from your neck!”

“Real leather, Sam. This coat was a freaking blessing and now it’s been ruined by vampires’ gunk.”

Sam doesn’t say anything, groaning and throwing his hand up in exasperation, his knuckles knocking against the Impala’s roof. “I’ll buy you a new one!”

“It won’t be the same,” Dean says regretfully. 

“Then we’ll go back to where you bought it and I’ll buy you the same one!”

“Like it’s that-” Dean is interrupted by a weird gurgle sound. He immediately swerves to the roadside as Sam turns toward the backseat, gun out and ready. 

“WHAT THE FUCK,” Sam screams. 

Dean pushes on the breaks, stopping the car a few inches from a tree before he turns toward the backseat, gripping the demon knife at his belt. “WHAT THE FUCK,” he screams too. 

“BA!”

Sam and Dean look at each other, blinking in shock. They look back to the backseat. On it, a baby is sitting, sucking on his fist as it looks at them with round blue eyes. 

“What. The. Fuck,” Dean repeats, not sure if he should take his knife out or not. 


	2. Intermittent baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll post a chapter on Wednesday and Saturday. Thanks to everyone who gave this story kudos and comments, I hope you'll all keep enjoying it. 
> 
> At first, the baby was supposed to be a mini Alex Calvert (because that's a perfect mix of Dean and Cas, physically), he was even called Jack, but I was scared that it was going to confused people so I changed the name. And then, even in my head he kind of become a mini Zep with blue eyes. I mean, how cute is this kid, right? Here is a pic of Zep with photoshoped blue eyes so you can visualize him. I hope you'll enjoy this chapter, it's my favorite. It's just a ton of cuteness before the angst^^

[ ](https://zupimages.net/viewer.php?id=20/32/z6n7.jpg)

_I really must confess right here_ _  
_ _The attraction was purely physical_ _  
_ _I took all those habits of yours_ _  
_ _That in the beginning were hard to accept_

****************

  
“No, but seriously, what the fuck, Sam?” Dean asks, pacing the length of their motel room back and forth. 

“For the millionth times, I DON’T KNOW, DEAN,” Sam exclaims, exasperated. 

“Do you think it’s a shapeshifter again?”

Sam just glares at him in answer, obviously as lost as him. 

“Da!” The baby answers, pointing at the wall. 

It’s (he? Dean is pretty sure it’s a boy) - He’s sitting on the bed, looking at them and pulling on his right sock until it gets free from his feet. He immediately shoves it in his mouth, making the boys grimace. 

“Come on, don’t do that,” Dean says, approaching the bed cautiously until he’s just closed enough to take away the sock. 

He does it as fast as he can, still not sure if that baby is actually a monster that could bite his hand off. He didn’t when Dean carried him from the Impala to the room, at arm's length just in case, but you never know. The baby doesn’t seem to care about the sock, babbling as he grabs his foot again and tries to shove it in his mouth instead. He ends up falling on his back. He rolls to the side and gets up on all fours, making a few steps toward the edge. 

“No, no, no, don’t do that,” Dean warns, cringing the closer the baby gets to the edge of the bed. The baby abruptly stops, blinking and making a face when water gets sprayed in his face. “Are you serious?!” Dean asks, turning toward his brother who’s holding a bottle of holy water. 

“What? We need to check,” Sam shrugs. The baby starts to scream, obviously not happy about the water on his face. Sam’s eyes get round in panic. 

“Don’t look at me, that’s your fault, so your problem now,” Dean says, raising his hands and stepping back from the bed where the baby is getting redder and redder as he cries. 

“Here-here baby, look at this round silver coin. It’s pretty, isn’t it? You want to touch it, don’t you?” Sam cues, squatting in front of the bed. It seems to work because the baby stops crying. He blinks at the coin Sam is holding with curiosity, head slightly canted to the side as he observes it. He must decide it’s interesting enough because he blows out some saliva bubbles in excitement and starts crawling toward the hunter on all fours. 

“Are you crazy?” Dean says, grabbing the coin just before the baby can. “You can’t give that to a baby, he’ll eat it!” 

“I wouldn’t have let him eat it, I just wanted to check!” Sam protests. 

Dean rolls his eyes before putting the coin against the baby’s arm. “Here. Checked without any baby choking to death.” He tries to take his hand away, but the baby grabs it, stopping him. “Okay, Sam, this baby is really strong,” Dean says, pulling his hand to no avail. “ _Really_ strong,” he says again, grimacing with the force he’s using to try to free himself. The baby suddenly releases his hands and it goes straight to Dean’s own face, punching himself right in the nose. The baby cackles in laughter and Dean glares when he hears Sam chuckle too. “That’s definitely not a human baby,” Dean declares, sulking in humiliation. 

“Holy water and silver did nothing, though,” Sam reflects, observing where the baby is pointing at nothing. “And he appeared out of nowhere. Are we sure he wasn’t in the car before?”

“Yeah, Sam, I’m pretty sure there was no baby in the car at our last pit stop, _three hours ago_.”

Sam ignores his sarcasm, seeming deep in thoughts. “So...super strength, no reaction to holy water or silver, teleportation; that sounds like an angel, Dean,” Sam concludes. 

“I thought the angels left, like, a year ago.”

“Yeah, I thought that too. We haven’t seen any since a few months after Cas le-” Sam stops himself, scratching his head. “I could check the lore for the miraculous appearance of superstrong babies, I guess.”

“I’ll check missing persons, just in case,” Dean declares, going to sit at the table with his laptop while Sam does the same. It’s only about thirty seconds before they hear a crash followed by loud shrieking. “Oh. One of us should probably keep an eye on the baby too.”

“Rock, paper, scissors?” Sam asks with a reluctant grimace. 

*********************

“Taw,” the little boy says, pointing at the fridge. 

“Yeah, that’s a fridge,” Dean answers, eyes not leaving the screen of his laptop. 

“Taw?” he asks, pointing at the table. 

“Table.”

“Tat!” the baby declares, bouncing in joy on Dean’s lap.

“Yeah, pretty exciting,” Dean says dryly, moving his head so he can keep reading his laptop’s screen over the kid’s head. The baby suddenly throws himself backward, headbutting the hunter in the chin, making him wince in pain. 

“Blananaba,” the kid exclaims, smashing his little hands on the keyboard while Dean is distracted, touching his lip to check if it’s bleeding. 

“Oh for fuck’s sa-,” Dean starts to say when he notices at least three error screen have appeared on his laptop already. “WHAT THE HELL,” Dean yells, jumping to his feet. The baby that was just on his lap has just disappeared. Sam is on his feet too as soon as he notices and they look around, like the kid would suddenly appear in a corner of the room. “Should we be worried?” Dean asks. 

“Maybe he went back where he came from?”

“Yeah, or he teleported himself right into a baking oven!” Dean sends a quick look toward the kitchen, just to check. 

“Maybe we should check the Impala? That’s where he went last time.” Sam suggests. 

They check the impala, in and under every car in the parking lot. And the bathroom. Under the bed. Even the wardrobe. 

“Well, I guess that’s a problem that solved itself,” Dean concludes, shrugging.

  
  


************

It’s six days later when he’s woken up by something grabbing his nose and _twisting_. Dean howls in pain and only barely stops himself from throwing the “thing” against the wall when it starts giggling in his hands. He blinks in the dark, holding the thing at arm length until he recognized the baby from last time. He deposits it onto the bed beside him and goes to turn on the lamp. By the time he turns back, there is no baby anymore. 

“That’s getting weirder and weirder.”

Dean elects not to say anything when it happens again two nights later, because Sam is starting to suggest that they contact Heaven about it and...no, just no. Cas left nearly sixteen months ago now and Dean is not ready to reach back. Or he is, and that’s the problem. He still desperately wants to. He still has to stop himself from praying to his friend every day, knows that he sometimes still does it without realizing. He has no idea if Castiel can even hear the random ‘I hope you’re okay, Cas’, ‘Damn, you would have loved that’, or ‘Help me I’m about to be eaten by the freaking Yeti’ that Dean can’t help but send off in subconscious prayers. Cas never answered, never gave any news, even to Sam. Dean knows it’s his own fault, that he’s been an asshole and that Cas didn’t deserve any of it. He was probably right when he told Dean he was better off without him. Dean doesn’t doubt it because he keeps hurting the people he loves, or getting them killed. 

So no, Dean is not ready to send off a message to Heaven about that weird baby, because what if Castiel is the one to answer?

Dean aches too much to see him to know that it would hurt too much to watch him go away again. He can’t get Cas back just to lose him again. He’s done losing people he loves and God knows that, after Sam, Castiel has been the one he loved the most. Cared about the most, in whichever way he allowed himself to. 

He has Sam, and he is hunting. That has been enough for the last sixteen months and it will have to be enough until the day some monster finally ganks him. Dean isn’t risking anything else, _anyone_ else, ever again. 

  
  


******************

“Oh come on!” Dean yells when he opens the shower curtains and the baby is sitting on the bath mat. 

“Tadata!”

“Yeah, you’re a real Houdini, kid,” Dean quips when the baby hides itself under a towel to play peekaboo. 

He’s gone again by the time Dean has finished brushing his teeth. 

The kid appears just long enough at breakfast to drop a cereal box to the ground. Then later Dean is pretty sure he hears him shriek in the corridor, but by the time he gets there, there is nothing. 

Dean wonders if that’s his life now, having an intermittent baby blinking in and out of his routine. 

  
  


************

“Okay, that’s it, I give up, I can’t do it anymore!” Dean declares, entering the library with a baby settled on one hip. They’re both covered in black grease after the baby appeared while Dean was working on the Impala and dumped a whole can of oil on his yellow overalls. Dean rushed to him in panic when he noticed the baby’s presence and the fact that he was licking the oil on his hands. Of course, the ground was covered in black grease by then and Dean fell right on his ass in a puddle of it. 

“Is that the baby from last time?” Sam asks, eyes huge. 

“No, Sam, it’s another teleporting baby,” Dean answers, deadpan. 

“What happened?”

“He’s a walking disaster, that’s what happened! He keeps popping everywhere and breaking stuff or hitting me in the face,” Dean says, glaring at the baby in his arms when he insistently tries to put his tiny hand covered in car grease in Dean’s mouth, painting the hunter’s face even more black. 

“What do you mean, he keeps popping everywhere? He’s done it before?” Sam asks, not seeming happy about being kept in the dark. Oops. 

“Just a few times,” Dean deflects, moving the kid to his other hip and looking around to try and find something to distract him. 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Sam exclaims. 

Dean shrugs, feigning being very concentrated in showing one of the portraits on the wall to the kid who does look fascinated by it. 

“Dean, we still have no idea what or who he is. I really think that we should try and contact Heaven.”

Dean bites the inside of his lips, still looking at the portrait even though the kid has now laid his head on his shoulder, rubbing his fists to his eyes and looking like he’s on the verge of falling asleep. Dean reflexively rubs a hand on the baby’s back as he snuggled his nose into the hunter’s shirt, sniffing sleepily. 

“Dean,” Sam insists, more gently. 

“I know,” Dean relents. “You should do it.”

“There is no need for that.”

Dean jumps, nearly dropping the baby at the sound of the voice right beside him. He looks in shock at the familiar blues eyes, scruff and mop of dark hair. Dazed, he barely notices the child reaching his arms in the direction of the angel. Castiel takes the kid from Dean’s arm with an ease that makes Dean shivers in realization. The baby’s eyes. It always bugged him because he knew that shade of blue. There was an unspeakable idea at the back of his mind every time he looked at this kid because he would recognize those eyes anywhere. He’s spent longer looking into those eyes than anything else after all. 

Now Castiel is standing here, a tired baby that looks just like him snuggled into his arm and Dean can’t breathe. He never allowed himself to imagine he would ever see the angel again, but if he had this would probably have been the last thing he would have expected. 

“He’s your son,” Dean croaks, voice so hoarse that it’s barely words. 

Castiel seems uneasy as he admits, “He is,” squeezing the sleeping child a little more against him. 

“Wow. Congratulations, Cas,” Sam intervenes, stepping closer to them, making them break their gaze. 

Castiel smiles, looking over at Sam. The angel is engulfed into a hug with a little laugh, the embrace made awkward by the kid between them.

“I’m happy to see you,” Sam declares, letting go. “And...wow,” he says, indicating the child. 

“Thank you, Sam, I’m happy to see you too.” Castiel’s smile falls a little when his eyes go back to Dean. 

Dean’s feet are rooted to the ground, his mouth too dry to speak. What would he say anyway? I’m happy to see you? He’s not, Dean feels anything but happy. He keeps looking at this kid and wondering if that’s true, if Cas was right all along, because it really does seem like the only way for him to find happiness was to push Dean out of his life. No. Cas didn’t push, Dean knows that, yet he can’t help the anger burning in his gut every time he thinks about Cas leaving.

The same anger that settled into his throat as soon as Cas appeared today. He wants to punch a wall until he can feel his bones break because that would still feel better than this. Than looking at Cas looking as handsome as ever with a kid he had with someone else in his arms, with the proof that he made a life away from Dean. Without Dean. It’s unfair and shameful to think this, but he can’t help it. He can’t help it and he can’t deal with it right now. 

He can’t keep looking at that cute kid snuggled into Cas stupid orange sweater because since when does Cas even wear sweaters anyway? That looks awful and he hates it. 

He can’t. 

Dean leaves without a word, the bunker door slamming so loudly behind him that it probably woke that stupid cute child that Cas had with whoever in his stupid new life. 

  
  


************

By the time he comes back, Dean feels ashamed about his attitude. It was childish of him to run away like that, he knows it was. He just felt so overwhelmed that he couldn’t stop his instinct to run away. In fight or flight mode, he generally picks the fight option, but there is nothing to fight here, just a reality that feels too hard to swallow. 

So what if Castiel found love or whatever and built a life for himself? Cas is his friend and he should be happy for him. He doesn’t have the right to be anything else. 

No one is the map room, kitchen or library, and Dean gets worried as he searches the bunker. He stops in front of what was supposed to be Cas’ room when he hears muffled voices coming from inside. The door is slightly ajar and he pushes it slightly. 

Castiel is sitting against the headboard on the bed, a book on his lap that he’s reading from. It seems to be in latin. Beside him, the baby is kneeling, hand on Castiel’s thigh as he looks up at him, bouncing a little up and down in excitement. 

Cas looks up when the door is pushed a little more, the baby following his dad’s gaze. Next thing he knows, Dean is fumbling to catch the kid that just appeared right against his chest with a happy shriek. 

“Sorry. He just learnt how to fly and I can’t seem to make him stop,” Cas admits, contrite. He tries to send a stern look at the baby, but the kid just answers with a chuckle, whipping his slob-covered cheek against Dean’s chin. “Come on, Jimmy, come here,” Cas invites, spreading his arm and taping his lap like he would when calling a dog. That makes Dean smirks. It seems to work though because in the blink of an eye, the baby is back on Cas’ lap. 

“So he’s a Jimmy, I was wondering about his name,” Dean says, scraping his throat when he’s caught looking at Cas interacting with his son for a little too long. 

“James, yes. I like it, it’s a strong name.”

“And that kid is definitely strong. He nearly broke my nose a bunch of times,” Dean says, teasing. 

“Sorry about that. He’s never interacted with humans before.”

“Since I didn’t see any mention of teleporting babies on the News, I kinda guessed that.”

“He only seems to fly to you,” Castiel says, reflecting as he straightens the kid's dark blond hair. He seems to realize what he said and looks embarrassed. “I didn’t mean for it to be a bother to you, even though I’m reassured by that fact.”

“He’s not a bother. I mean, it’s strange and he’s definitely-,” Dean searches for his words, “- energetic,” he says, the amused look Castiel sends him proving that he definitely got his meaning. That kid is a terror. “But it’s okay. He’s cute.”

“Badada!” Jimmy says to him over his shoulder, like he approves on that last point. 

“Does he...have other powers?”

“We’re not sure yet,” Castiel says, squinting at his child like his powers would suddenly be written right onto his forehead. “I’m not looking forward to him learning to smite things, to be honest.”

Dean can’t help but laugh. 

“You and me both, pal.”

They exchange a smile for a moment before the silence comes back, heavier. 

“Sam is reinforcing the wards around the bunker so Jimmy can’t fly out of here,” Cas says. 

“That means you’re staying?” Dean asks, taken aback. Cas looks down. 

“We were waiting for you to come back to ask but yes, we need a safe place to hide for a while, and this is the safest I know.”

There are so many things Dean wants to say, to ask about, but the one that gets out is the worst one. 

“What about his mom?”

Cas’ face scrunches up in confusion as he sits straighter, sitting the kid between his legs. 

“There is no mother,” he answers, seeming to weigh his words carefully. Dean is opening his mouth to speak again when Cas cuts him off. “If you’re okay with us staying here tonight, it’s nearly time for Jimmy to go to bed. Sam said that you may have a crib in storage somewhere?”

“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure some exorcism shit went down in that thing.”

“It’s okay, I’ll purify it to be safe.”

Again, Dean has so many questions he wants to ask. How did Cas get his powers back? Is he an angel again? What does he mean there is no mother? Where was he all this time if not on Earth? Hasn’t Heaven closed up shop? Why is he back here? Why does he need to hide? Who’s after him?

Just thinking about all this is making his head swim, so he just nods and goes to take the crib out of storage. Not that it could hold back that kid from going wherever he wants to anyway. 

************

This is confirmed when Dean is woken up by his hair being pulled. He opens his eyes just in time for a drooling filet to land right into his right one. He grumbles in protest, scrubbing at his eye. The child is lifted off his face. 

“Sorry,” Castiel says, bashful, standing next to the bed with a wriggling baby in his arms.

“What hour is it?” Dean mumbles into his pillow. 

“Five. Jimmy doesn’t sleep much.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” Dean answers, yawning. 

“We’ll make your breakfast to make up for it,” Castiel offers, still looking ashamed. 

“You don’t cook and I doubt Jimmy does.”

“We’ll go to Paris and get you some croissants.”

“I thought you had to hide?”

Castiel seems to think about it for a second before he puts Jimmy back on the bed next to Dean. 

“I’ll go and get you breakfast.”

“No wait-” Dean groans again because Cas has already disappeared. God, Dean didn’t miss all the zapping around. “It’s five am, I’m not getting up,” the hunter announces to the baby sitting beside him. Jimmy seems to understand because he lies down next to him. 

“Do do,” the little boy says, grabbing Dean’s hands to put two of his fingers in the sides of his mouth where there are no teeth yet. Dean grimaces when the kid slobbers and sucks on them, but it seems to calm him so he lets him. 

“Yeah let’s get back to dodo,” Dean mumbles, putting his other hand on the kid's back and closing his eyes. 

He barely manages to doze off, saving his fingers in extremis when the kid decides to use his newly acquired front teeth on it. It’s still somewhat relaxing to lay there and watch the kid as he paw at Dean and babbles. Now that he knows, he can see Cas more clearly in the cleft on the baby’s chin. His nose and ears are definitely Cas’ too. He observes the shape of his eyes and lips, trying to imagine what the kid’s mother must look like. 

He feels ashamed of the relief he felt when Cas told him that Jimmy’s mother was no longer in the picture. The kid deserves to have two parents, a nice family. So does Cas. 

“Mada ta ma.”

“Yeah I know,” Dean answers absentmindedly, sighing. He huffs when the kid puts a knee on his stomach, deciding to walk on him now. He holds him by the hip as he crawls and jumps up a little. Dean doesn’t remember caring for Sam when he was this young, having been so young himself, but he’s surprised that his instincts are still there as he secures the kid’s position, letting him raise up almost to his feet before he immediately falls back. “I’m not sure you’re ready for walking yet, buddy.”

“Ba!” Jimmy declares, trying to get up again by holding onto Dean’s arm, a look of determination scrunching his cute little face. 

“You definitely got your dad’s stubbornness.”

Dean jumps when he hears a low chuckle, only now noticing Cas standing at the head of the bed. He has a weird look on his face, his eyes a little too red. 

“Coffee and breakfast are ready.”

“Da!” Jimmy exclaimed, reaching for his dad. One second later he’s appearing in his arms, Castiel catching him with ease. 

“Jesus, that kid is going to give me a heart attack,” Dean says, “Hey, another thing he gets from you!”

Cas’ smile is a little sad and Dean doesn’t understand why. 

************

“Jimmy and I have been living in Heaven for the last year,” Castiel tells them later. 

Now that he’s about to hear about the truth, Dean feels nervous, grabbing his third cup of coffee a little too tight. 

“I’ve been working on reorganizing the Host ever since…” Cas doesn’t finish his sentence. They all hear it anyway: ever since he left. The angel scratches his brow nervously and Dean wonders where he got that mannerism. “Everything has been going well so far. Most of the angels have come back. Some are still weak but being in Heaven, close to the Host, is helping their grace heal,” he explains. “We’ve decided to stay out of humans’ affairs. There is too much work to do in Heaven, for now.”

“So ET goes home and all is well again, but who’s after you now?” Dean asks, his nervousness making him impatient. 

“Most angels are happy about the way things are now, but some still believe that we are superior to humans and should hold power over them. They are not many, but the few are very vocal.” Castiel’s eyes drop to his own hand, seeming to ponder his next words. He throws a quick glance to Jimmy playing on the ground. “Jimmy is half-human,” Cas finally declares. 

A silence follows his statement. 

“He’s a nephilim,” Sam concludes. “And they let you two live in Heaven? I thought the angels didn’t like those.”

“That’s a euphemism,” Castiel scoffs. “Since the beginning of time, nephilim have been considered the ultimate abomination. Angels hunt them. I killed some of them myself,” Cas confesses, abashed. “Accepting Jimmy was one of the conditions of the angels’ return to Heaven. The Heaven we want to build is more...let’s say human friendly. An angel that couldn’t accept Jimmy’s human side had no place in New Heaven.”

“Who’s we?” Dean asks, curiosity picked. 

“Naomi and I,” Castiel reluctantly says. 

“Naomi?! Are you kidding? That chick is crazy! She made you kill me, like, a billion times! And now she wants to advocate for human’s rights?”

“We’ve found common ground,” Cas simply declares. “I don’t approve of her past ways, but she’s changed them since. Our goals are the same and she cares about Jimmy. That’s all that matters.”

Dean feels a burst of anger at the idea that Naomi could be Jimmy’s mom...but it can’t be her, he reminds himself, because Jimmy’s mom was human, wasn’t she?. 

“I don’t trust that bitch,” Dean grumbles into his cup of coffee. 

“Well, I’m not asking you to, Dean,” Cas says, short. 

“If angels refusing Jimmy’s human side weren’t allowed into the Host, why are you hiding from them now?” Sam asks, bringing them back on topic. 

“I’m ashamed to say that we were fooled by a number of them. One of them, Bartholomew, was an especially good liar. He managed to get into our close entourage. I trusted him,” Cas confesses bitterly. “He managed to steal Jimmy away and brought him back to Earth. We don’t know yet what his plan was, but I do intend to find out,” Cas swears, his tone of voice alone speaking of vengeance. 

Dean can’t help but look at the kid, suddenly feeling the urge to reassure himself that he’s safe. Jimmy is just a baby. How could anyone want to hurt him? 

In the next blink, Jimmy is sitting on his lap, happily slapping the table in front of them with the yellow stuffed rabbit Castiel brought him from God knows where, along with a ton of other baby stuff. Sam chuckles and Cas smiles tenderly at his son, automatically taking the cutlery from in front of Dean before Jimmy manages to hurt someone or cause a disaster. 

“Thankfully, as soon as Bartholemew brought him to earth, Jimmy did exactly this,” Cas explains with a nod toward his son on Dean’s lap, barely getting the hunter’s cup of coffee away before it can be thrown off the table. 

“That first time in the car,” Sam concludes. 

“Thank you for taking care of him,” Cas tells them sincerely. “The problem seems to be that now he won’t stop doing it,” the angel says, teasingly scolding his son. 

“Blagaba!”

“Why didn’t you bring him back to Heaven then?”

“Oh, I did. Many times. It only worked for about five days the first time before he managed to fly right out of it too.”

“To Dean,” Sam deducts with a frown that Dean doesn’t like. 

“Dabada,” Jimmy declares, throwing himself backward onto Dean’s chest. This time, Dean manages to avoid the headbutt to his chin, patting the kid’s stomach. 

“What can I say, I’m a charmer,” Dean declares cockily when the kid grabs both his cheeks to look at him upside down. Cas seems ill-at-ease, wriggling on his chair. “What about this Bartholomew asshole? Did you catch him?”

“I have people searching for him. We’ve managed to flush out most of his partners in Heaven, but I’m not sure who to trust yet.”

“I’ve checked the wards. Jimmy shouldn’t be able to get out and no angel but you can get inside. You two can stay here as long as you want.”

“Thank you, Sam.” Cas sends a look to Dean, looking unsure. “I’ve sent one of my most trusted angels, Tamiel, to infiltrate their ranks, trying to find out what Bartholomew’s intentions are, but I haven’t gotten any news so far.”

“It’s okay, Cas, you can stay as long as you need to,” Dean promises, grabbing the sock that the kid once again managed to take off and stuff in his mouth. 

“Thank you, Dean. That means more than you know,” Cas says, voice a little hoarse. 

“It’s not like this little stinker leaves us much of a choice anyway,” Dean says, making a funny voice. He raises the kid in front of him and shakes him a little, making Jimmy giggle. Dean realizes it was the wrong thing to say as soon as Castiel drops his head again. 

As if in defense of his dad, Jimmy chooses this moment to barf on Dean. 

*******************

“Holy oil, maybe?” Dean suggested. 

“We are not putting my son’s crib on fire,” Cas says, looking scandalized by the idea. 

“I was pooping, Cas. _Pooping_. There must be some way we can keep that kid into his crib.” Cas doesn’t seem to find this as funny as it was intended. “Why is it always my lap he lands on anyway?” Dean grumbles as the kid in Castiel’s arms stretches his chubby arms toward him to be picked up. The hunter is starting to understand that the baby is going to end up in his arms whether he wants him too or not. He goes to take him, but Castiel turns away. 

“If it’s so much of a bother to you, we could go back to Heaven,” Cas says, prickly. 

As if to prove a point, the kid flies right into Dean’s arms. “Yeah, good luck with that,” Dean scoffs, pointing at the baby grabbing his chin to try and suck on it. 

Cas glares and Dean sighs, deposing the kid on the blanket they’ve laid out on the ground for him. The hunter spends a few seconds making sure the toy he’s showing him manages to grab the baby's interest before he gets back up. Cas still looks troubled. 

“We could go somewhere else and use the same wards as here,” Cas suggests. 

“Eh, no, Cas,” Dean says, shaking his head, “It was a joke, okay? I’m happy you’re here.” Dean bites his lip when he realizes what he just said. 

“Are you?” Cas asks, head inclined as he observes him. 

“I...Sure. I know we didn’t exactly part as friends-”

“I didn’t mean that. That was over the line, I’m sorry,” Cas rushes to apologize at the reminder of his parting words to Dean. 

“No, you were right. I thought I had good reasons, but I could have handled this better,” Dean admits. 

“I talked to Ezekiel,” Cas says, “He told me he was the one who asked you to…” Cas searches for the right words.

“Throw you out? Yeah, that’s no excuse.”

“I understand, Dean. Sam is your priority, he’s always been. You had to-”

“Oh stop it with the self-deprecating bullshit. You were important too. Now let me apologize correctly!”

“Dada,” Jimmy calls, looking worried at Dean raising his voice. The angel goes to squat beside his son, a hand on his back seeming to reassure the baby enough that he goes back to playing. 

“Well?” Cas asks, expectant. 

“Well what?”

“You asked me to let you apologize…” Cas says, a teasing glint in his eyes despite the previous tension. 

“You’re a little shit, you know that?” Dean answers, chuckling. 

“That doesn’t sound like an apology.” Cas says, frowning with an exaggerated confused face. 

Dean goes to kneel on the blanket, taking back the toy that Jimmy threw out of reach and giving it back to him. 

“So...We’re good?” he asks, a little hesitant. 

There’s a shy smile at the corner of Castiel’s mouth when he nods. Dean feels like he can suddenly breathe easier than he did in nearly two years. 

***********************

A few days later as he goes through his morning routine (after a blissfully childfree night), Dean doesn’t recognize the bunker. There are toys on every surface AND on the floor. There’s a highchair and bottles in the kitchen, freaking baby food in the beer rack of the fridge. 

What have their lives become?

They’ve been invaded. 

“Where does this stuff even come from?” He ponders into his cup of coffee. 

“Cas keeps zapping in and out and bringing more,” Sam answers, tapping on his laptop and seemingly unbothered by it all. 

“There is way too much of it, it’s like a baby colonisation in here! You should talk to him about it,” Dean suggests. He doesn’t have much hope that Sam will accept, but he doesn’t feel like having this conversation with Castiel so he may as well try. 

“Why? It’s not _my_ baby.” Sam simply answers. 

There’s a weird smirk at the corner of his mouth. Dean spends the next few minutes glaring at his brother over the edge of his coffee cup and wondering why. 

******************

 _No way._ There is no way that could be. It’s ridiculous. _Impossible._

Dean paces as he waits for Cas to get out of the bathroom. He’s been waiting for ten minutes, nervously listening to water being splashed around as he panics more and more. 

They are men. 

MEN. 

Fuck Sam, there is no way he could be…

He jumps when the door suddenly opens. He looks wide eyes at Castiel, standing in the doorway of the bathroom, a frown appearing on the angel’s face as the seconds tick by and Dean says nothing. Jimmy is wrapped into a towel, light brown hair wet and sucking on his big toe. Dean stares at him, the baby just calmly blinking back. After a while, Jimmy offers him a big smile, tongue picking out a little under his front teeth. Damn, he’s seen that smile before.

_In a goddamn mirror._

“How old is Jimmy?” Dean finally manages to croak, throat so tight that the words are barely audible. He doesn’t look up to Cas, doesn’t need to, because the silence that answer is a little too heavy, a little too long. 

“He’ll be eleven months in three days.”

Dean suddenly feels like passing out. Maybe he does, because the next thing he knows, he’s standing in his own room. He blinks and Cas appears in front of him, looking panicked and with no baby in sight. Dean opens his mouth. Closes it. Sits on the edge of his bed before his legs can give out on him. 

“Jimmy is with Sam. I think it’s time we talk.” Cas says, looking like he wants to run away. 

“Is...Is he…”

Cas bites his lips, nodding when Dean looks up. The hunter gasps. Is that what an aneurysm feels like? Or a heart attack maybe? His heart is definitely doing something weird. 

“How,” he manages to say, not quite managing to turn it into a question. 

“It’s rare, but possible.”

“But you were human! A human MALE,” Dean says, raising up only a few inches before he falls back on his ass. Nope, his legs have definitely stopped working.

“I was never totally human. Or a male, really.”

Dean can’t help but glare. That is not a sufficient explanation. That doesn’t explain ANYTHING. 

“You knew,” Dean realizes, mind running fast and in every direction, trying to make sense of it. “The night you left, you already knew,” he breathes in shock. 

“I should have told you,” Cas admits, looking ashamed. 

“Damn right you should have!” Dean suddenly yells. He doesn’t know how but he’s now standing inches from Cas’ face, seething. 

“And then what?” Cas says between clenched teeth. Dean takes a step back, literally taken aback by the anger he can see reflected in the angel’s eyes. “We would have raised him together? Raised the result of that mistake you couldn’t even bring yourself to talk about?” he taunts. 

“It would still have been a better option than being raised by your sicko angel family,” the hunter accuses between clenched teeth.

“I didn’t exactly have many options.”

“Anything would have been better than that! Look at what’s happening now!”

“You have no right to judge me on this,” Cas says, voice hard and so close that Dean can see nothing but his flashing blue eyes. 

“You had no right to hide it from me,” Dean throws right back, chin high as he takes a step even closer, in defiance. They’re glaring, faces so close that their noses are brushing. Dean can practically hear the angel’s teeth grinding against each other. 

They both jump at the sound of a loud wail, Castiel immediately blinking out of existence.

Dean runs to the map room, faltering at the scene that greets him. 

Sam is unconscious on the ground. Three men and a woman in dark angel suits are standing in the middle of the room. One of them is holding Jimmy who’s wailing all he can. Around his neck, a thick metal band is shining a blue light around what looks like enochian symbols. 

Castiel is a few feet to Dean’s right. The hunter has never seen him look so enraged. Dean has never felt so enraged himself than he is when the angel holding Jimmy puts a blade under his throat as a warning not to approach. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the cliffhanger (or am I?). You can scream at me in the comment section ;-)


	3. Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I move in my new house this weekend and didn't get the chance to post the chapter on Saturday like I'd planned to. The next one will be on Saturday. 
> 
> The rating goes up to Explicit with this chapter. It's my first time writing 'porn' tbh, so don't hesitate to tell me what you thought, I need constructive criticism to get better at it and feedback to dare to write another one. 
> 
> I hope you'll like this chapter, it's angstier than the previous one. 
> 
> Thanks for all your feeback so far, you're all awesome for taking the time to do it <3

_The big bossed lady with the Dutch accent_

_Who tried to change my point of view_

_Her ad lib lines were well rehearsed_

_But my heart cried out for you_

_****************_

Dean’s breath is ragged as he watches the place the angels were just a few seconds ago, as he realizes what just happened. 

They took him. They took Jimmy. 

_His son_. 

A loud metallic clatter gets Dean out of his stupor. He turns to see Castiel kneeling on the ground, his angel blade having fallen by his side. His shoulders are slumped in defeat and his face...Dean has never seen his friend looking so devastated. He looks haggard, eyes lost and mouth open in horror. 

“Cas…,” Sam calls from where he’s raising up. His head is bleeding from a cut on his forehead. He’s barely staying up, holding onto the table to stay upright. 

Cas’ eyes raised toward him before slowly sliding back to the place he last saw his son. The expression on his face is changing to one that Dean is more used to seeing: rage. 

“You,” Cas’ spits toward the ground. In the next second, he’s appeared on the other side of the room, grabbing Sam by the throat and slamming him against the wall. He keeps him there, the hunter’s feet dangling above the ground as he struggles uselessly against the hold pressing on his trachea. “You were supposed to ward this place! Jimmy was supposed to be safe here!” Cas yells, face contorted by fury. 

“Cas!” Dean screams, rushing to their side. He grabs Cas’ arm, pulling to try and make him release his brother. 

“I did, Cas. I promi-” Sam tells, words gurgled as he gasps for a breath that he can’t find. 

“They took my son!” Cas howls as Sam gets redder and redder. The angel barely seems to notice Dean’s hands on him, unmoveable. 

“Cas, cut it out!” Dean orders. He tries to pull his brother free as Sam starts sloping in the angel’s hold, his head falling to the side as he’s barely holding onto consciousness. Sam’s eyes are just closing when he suddenly drops in a heap on the ground, finally released. 

The angel takes three steps back, eyes wide with shock. 

“I shouldn’t have trusted you,” he murmurs, finally turning to Dean. The hunter is crouched next to his brother, a hand on his shoulder to stabilize him as Sam grabs onto him, taking huge gulps of air. “Two weeks,” Cas gasps, eyes lost on the wall a few feet above their heads. “It took only two weeks knowing you for him to be taken away from me.”

“No, Cas, that’s not fair and you know-”

“They took my son,” Cas repeats, voice croaking. He looks so lost that he probably didn’t even hear Dean. 

His eyes finally meet the hunter’s for a few seconds, expression unreadable. 

Then he’s gone. 

  
  


*************************

“You okay?” Dean asks later, putting a hand on his brother’s shoulder and searching his eyes. They’ve sewn closed the cut on his forehead, but Sam still looks like he’s shaking. 

“I checked the wards just this morning, Dean. I swear I-” Sam defends, shell-shocked.

“Hey, it’s okay, I believe you.”

“How could they have gotten inside? This should not be-” Sam despairs, thinking it over. He gets up so brusquely that Dean nearly falls backward. “I need to go check the wards, see what happened,” Sam says. He vacillates, grabbing the table again to stabilise himself. 

“You need to _rest_. You took a serious blow to the head, Sam,“ Dean advises, voluntarily leaving out the part where Cas nearly choked his little brother to death. He can’t quite believe that happened, can’t allow himself to think about it right now. 

“It doesn’t matter. We need to find Jimmy!” Sam insists, taking a few steps before faltering and grabbing onto the bookcase. Dean rushes to his side, gripping his brother’s arm to keep him from falling down. “Why are you so calm? Why are you just standing here doing nothing?” Sam accuses. 

The hard stare Dean answers him with seems to chastitize him. 

“I’m not doing nothing. I’m taking care of my brother because he’s hurt,” Dean grits between clenched teeth. 

“Dean, I’m sorry…” Sam says, eyes tearing up. “I don’t what happened, I-”

“ _Exactly,_ ” Dean cuts him off, voice hard. “We don’t know anything yet and blaming yourself won’t help anything. So go rest for an hour or two until you can get your head back on straight and _find out_ ,” he orders. 

Sam nods, gulping to swallow back his tears. 

“One hour,” he concedes. 

  
  


*************************

Dean’s leg wobbles as soon as he closes the door of his brother’s bedroom and he falls to his knees, hard. He’s gasping for air that he suddenly can’t quite find, chest getting tighter and tighter. He closes his eyes as hard as he can to keep them from overflowing and pulls on his own hair. A scream is burning his throat, but he holds it back too. His head feels like it’s going to explode, overflowing with raw emotions. 

In about two hours, he’s discovered that he had a son, just to lose him almost immediately. He had gotten Castiel back and now...now he’s probably lost him again. The simple idea that he could have lost Sam too...He can’t calm down, can’t bury it. Not this time. Not right now. 

Dean stays curled up there for a long time, on his knees with his forehead laying on the cold concrete ground, head buried in his arms. He doesn’t know if he prays or begs or if his thoughts are too much of a mess to get out of his own head. He just knows that in less than an hour he’ll have to get back up and he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to. 

His knee and back aches from the position he’s in, yet he doesn’t move an inch until he hears Sam waking up a few steps away. He takes a deep breath, gets up and puts on a brave face. 

************************

Dean slams the door of the bunker behind him, wincing at the noise. Sam seems agitated, running from the map table to the old fashion equipement near the opposite wall. His laptop is connected to the table by a bunch of cables. 

“Live traffic cameras were a bust,” Dean announces, frustrated as he gets down the steps. 

Yesterday, they discovered that the wards had been tampered with. They deduced that the angels that took Jimmy must have had help from humans. They had hope that the human accomplices had driven to the bunker, or at least the closest road, which would have meant that they could have been caught by some traffic cam, but there was no sign of any cars approaching the bunker road between the moment Sam checked the wards in the morning and the moment Jimmy disappeared. Dean even checked as far as the day before that, in case the intruder had already been in the woods while Sam was outside, but he couldn’t see anything. 

“What the hell are you doing?” Dean asks when Sam nearly runs into him as he goes back to the laptop on the map table. 

“Remember the day the angels fell? Alarms went blowing and lights appeared all over the map table. We never looked into how that happened, but it seems clear that the bunker has some way to detect angelic energy surges.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Cas said that being a nephilim made Jimmy much more powerful than angels, but his powers are still angelic in nature.”

“You think you could find him with that old thing?” Dean says, pointing to the bunker old security system. He pushes down the hope that flares, not daring to believe yet. 

“I think it could, yes. Problem is I still have to figure out how it works,” Sam explains disconnecting the cables from the table and bringing the computer to the old console instead.

“But they put that collar thing with the wards on Jimmy. He probably can’t use his powers right now or he probably would have appeared while I was pooping this morning or something,” Dean says, feeling guilty at how much he complained about this. He would give anything for the kid to appear right into his arms right now. 

“Yeah, but remember how the collar was shining? It’s blocking his powers, keeping them contained, but Jimmy is still producing energy so we might be able to detect it,” Sam explains. 

“What do you need?” Dean asks, looking around, eager. He needs to do something or he’s going to go crazy. He needs to help. “What can I do?”

“This machine detects all kinds of energy wavelengths and I have no idea how to even start to dissociate them. I can’t do this without Castiel, you need to call him back,” Sam admits, a little hesitant. 

“No way, Sam. After what he did to you?”

“He had just lost his son, Dean,” Sam reminds him, like Dean could forget, when he did too. It wasn’t the same, he knew that, but he still lost Jimmy too. They all did. Sam seems to realise his blunder, looking guilty. “I’ll explain him for the wards. He won’t hurt me, Dean, I trust him.”

“Then call him yourself,” Dean answers, a little annoyed...and touched that Sam cared that much about Cas…and annoyed at how much that touches him. Sam’s stare is insistent and doesn’t let on though, edging toward the ultimate puppy eyed look. Dean sighs, throwing his hands up. “Okay okay, I’ll do it,” he concedes with a groan. 

He leaves Sam to the map room and goes to the library instead, needing a few minutes to gather himself. He hasn’t slept in more than thirty hours, navigating between being exhausted and full of pent up energy. He feels like he’s going out of his mind every time he stops for even just a second. He can’t stop. Jimmy could be hurt right now, they need to find him. 

He takes a deep breath and dial Cas’ number. He’s already left him half a dozen messages, unbeknown to Sam, going from screaming to pretty much begging, but the angel still hasn’t reached back. 

To be honest, Dean isn’t even sure he still has a phone. He probably ditched it when he left the bunker that night more than sixteen months ago. Dean still can’t quite believe that he already knew that he was carrying Dean’s child at time and said nothing. He’s still furious about that, hasn’t even had time to fully process it yet. He’s never felt more betrayed than by the fact that Castiel would hide something so important from him. 

Every time he thinks about why Castiel might have left like this, hides Jimmy from him, he can’t help but hear Castiel’s last words of yesterday. For eleven months, Jimmy was safe. Only two weeks in Dean’s life and he was kidnapped. Dean wasn’t able to protect him. What if Cas had been right to keep him away all along? 

Dean startles when he hears Cas’ voice on his voicemail. He sighs, knowing it’s probably useless to call him. “Cas, call me, Sam thinks he’s found a way to find Jimmy,” Dean says, his brain still overwhelmed by a thousand thoughts and emotions. 

He’s barely hung up when Castiel is suddenly in front of him. 

“How?” the angel asks, face closed off. 

“What, no ''hello” or ''i’m sorry i nearly killed your brother”?” Dean rages. He knows it’s misplaced and not the time, but seeing Cas brings back images of his brother dangling from his grip, choking. It makes a rush of anger surges through Dean. 

“Tell. me. How,” Cas asks again, taking a menacing step toward Dean. The hunter glares right back. 

He deflates when Cas’ shoulders tense more, scared at the idea that the angel might leave again. They need to find Jimmy. That's all that counts. 

“Sam thinks we can use the bunker’s detection system, he just doesn’t know how to make it work yet.”

“So you might have a way but you’re not sure and don’t know how to use it anyway,” Cas summarizes, seeming bothered. Cas disappears immediately and Dean swears. 

What a freaking asshole! He gets that he's worried and angry, but Jesus, what an asshole!

Castiel reappears with three angels by his side.

“We need access to the bunker’s archives to search anything we can find on Nephilim and the collar they used on Jimmy. We also need your help to perform a tracking spell,” Cas declares. “In exchange, Rariel-,” Castiel gesture to the older angel next to him, “- will help Sam understand whatever it is he’s trying to do,” Castiel declares before turning to his acolytes without waiting for Dean’s answer. “Arariel, use the books here for research. Sachiel, I need you to find the ingredients for a locating spell. Tamiel should have been back from his mission days ago. I couldn’t find any nimroot in the bunker’s storage, and we’re going to need some mesopotamian dragon blood, too,” Castiel orders. The one Dean assumes was Sachiel nods and disappears. “Sam,” Cas calls as soon as Sam enters the room, looking surprised to see all the angels, “I’ll need you to do the spell to find Tamiel, he had infiltrate Bartholemew’s ranks on my orders, if he’s still alive he might know where Jimmy is.”

“Why didn’t you do this before, then?” Dean asks, getting more and more pissed off by Castiel’s attitude. He can’t just order Sam around like he didn’t nearly kill him last time he saw him!

“This is demon magic, no angel can use that spell,” Cas says as he walks to the map room and looks at the open laptop. “What is this?” 

“I was thinking that we could locate an angelic energy surge to find Jimmy,” Sam explains, still a little wide eyed but going with the flow more easily than Dean. 

“It won’t work for Jimmy because of the collar and most of Bartholemew’s troup are fallen angels that we didn’t let back into Heaven,” Cas rejects the idea. “Can it work retroactively?”

“I...I think? I think it’s always working in the background, I just don’t understand how to read the data yet,” Sam explains. 

“If Tamiel was killed, this might help us detect the power surge of his Grace as he died. Show me,” Cas orders. Sam rushes to execute himself, taping on the computer to bring on the right screen. 

Dean takes a deep breath and squeezes his fist. He kinda feels like punching Cas, right now. He hates seeing him this closed off. Hell, he just mentioned the death of one of his siblings like it would be _convenient_. 

“Excuse me?”

Dean blinks, turning toward one of the angels Castiel brought with him. She’s a petite woman, with long blond hair and a mousy face. She’s wearing a flowery summer dress and looking at him with round blue eyes. He barely noticed her before, but now that she’s standing beside him, looking at him a little nervously, Dean can’t help but wonder about her clothes. None of the angels alongside Castiel wore the traditional dark suit Dean is used to seeing the angels wear. Hell, the black guy named Sachiel is dressed like he came straight from the 80s with maroon flared pants and a beige vest. 

“Could you help me with the archive search? We’ve gone through all the books we had on Heaven on the subject of nephilim. I’m sure you have many but your archives are warded and I can’t access it,” Arariel explains in a voice a little too squeaky for Dean’s liking. 

Dean throws a hesitant glance toward his brother and Castiel, both looking at the computer’s screen and discussing what they’re seeing, while the third angel hovers next to them, listening in. Surely, Cas won’t try to hurt Sam again, will he? This Castiel feels so foreign to Dean that he doesn’t know if he can trust him. 

He sees Arariel fidget from the corner of his eyes. And what the hell is that anyway? Since when angels wear colorful clothes and fidget? What the hell happened to Heaven and its monolithic dickheads?

Dean grunts in frustration and indicates Arariel to follow him. Castiel is scared and angry, but he needs them right now, he wouldn’t hurt Sammy. Not again. 

  
  


*************************

When Dean gets back up from the archives a couple hours later, Sam is standing over a copper bowl with the angel that disappeared earlier to gather the ingredients. They’re obviously preparing the spell. 

“How did the data search go?” Dean asks, looking around for Castiel. He can’t see him anywhere. 

“No energy surges, which probably means that Tamiel must be alive,” Sam declares, laying down a paper map for the location spell. “How about the research?”

“It’s a bust so far. Where’s Cas?”

Sam indicates the corridor that leads to the bedrooms with a shrug and Dean starts into that direction. 

“Tell him we’ll be ready for the spell in twenty,” Sam calls after him. 

Dean raises his hand above his head to show he heard him, heading straight for the corridor. The doors to his bedroom and Sam’s are closed, but the one to what was once Cas’ is slightly ajar. He stops a few steps from it when he hears a choked off noise. He advances more slowly until he can see inside. 

Cas is sitting on the edge on the bed, shoulders hunched as he looks down at what is in his hands: Jimmy’s yellow rabbit plush. Castiel is wearing his trenchcoat and blue suit again instead of the jeans and one of the ugly sweaters from the last few days. It’s weird seeing him in that oversized trench coat again, it’s making him look smaller somehow, like a little kid wearing his dad’s coat. 

Dean pushes open the door and Cas looks up. For the first time since the moment after Jimmy was taken, his face isn't painted in wrath or completely closed off. Though he does look like he’s trying to hide his emotions for a few seconds, he can’t seem to be able to right now. Their eyes lock and suddenly Cas starts shaking, looking so devastated that Dean can’t help but rush to his side with the need to comfort him. His ass is barely on the bed before Cas is sobbing into his collarbone, breaking down for what Dean suspects is the first time since his son was taken. 

Faced with Cas’ despair, Dean’s anger at him vanishes. 

Dean shushes him, stroking his friend’s back as he feels his own eyes burn. The more time passes, the more the worries he has for the little boy turn into a physical pain twisting his stomach. Just thinking that anything could happen to him...And he has only known Jimmy for two weeks. He can’t imagine what Castiel must be feeling right now. No wonder he’s going crazy and acting like an asshole.

“You know, turning anxiety into rage is generally my thing…,” Dean teases when Cas stops sobbing, sniffing miserably instead. The angel sits back, and Dean regrets having said anything. 

Castiel wipes his eyes on the sleeve of his coat, tear tracks making his face look blotchy. Dean had no idea an angel could even cry like that...but Cas never was a typical angel, was he?

Cas fidgets with the yellow bunny, Jimmy’s favorite toy.

“I’m sorry, Dean, I never meant to hurt Sam...Or you,” the angel admits. 

“It’s okay, I get it,” Dean says, waving it off. 

Cas squints his eyes, observing him in that way he has that makes Dean feel naked and safe at the same time. 

“I’ve made many mistakes. I…I don’t know how to even start to make it right by you, Dean.”

“I’m sure I’ve made just as many. Let’s just say we’re both idiots and assholes, and that we’re even, alright?”

Cas offers a small okay and a sad smile in return. They stare at each other for a moment before Dean gets up. 

“Sam should be ready for the spell now, we should go,” he announces. He hesitates a second before offering his hand to Cas. The angel hesitates just as long before taking it as he stands up. “Don’t go all asshole again, okay? If you need to hug it out, or cry it out or whatever, you tell me and we take five,” Dean proposes, blushing a little because he didn’t mean to add the ‘we’ part. Cas nods anyway, seeming relieved and grateful. 

“The same goes for you. I...I know those last few days haven't been easy for you either.”

Dean nods, releasing Cas’s hand when he realizes he’s still holding it. The angel's worried eyes on him makes him wonder if he did hear Dean’s (mostly involuntary) prayers. 

He doesn’t dare to ask. 

  
  


************************

Cas closes his eyes, chest tight as Sam shakes his head with an air of defeat. They’ve been trying the spell again and again for nearly forty minutes now, frustration and desperation growing at each failure. They can’t track Tamiel. Which means they can’t find Jimmy either.

Cas flinches when he hears a loud clash as Dean rages. He doesn’t open his eyes through, not yet, not when the defeat will be so obvious on his face. He can’t lose hope, not in front of his garrison. He takes a deep breath and waits for Dean's fit of rage to end, considering their next course of action. He’s not giving up. He won’t ever give up. 

Once Dean seems to have stopped breaking things, Cas turns to his angels. 

“Sam and I have managed to pinpoint the location where every angel fell three years ago. I need you to identify each vessel and cross-reference it with every angel having returned to Heaven or died since then. Fallen angels are helping Bartholemew, we need to know exactly who they are, who their vessels are and where they are right now. This is top priority, we’ll need every garrison available flying all over the globe to check every vessel in person, is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” the three angels answer before nodding and going straight for the map room. 

“I’ll help them cross reference weird occurrences to identify the human vessels,” Sam announces before following them. 

When Cas finally dares to turn back toward Dean, the hunter has overturned the small table with the spell ingredients, as well as broken what was probably a chair. His brow is furrowed and his fists squeezed so hard it makes his hands white by his side as he stands there, surrounded by broken things. Cas tilts his hand in worry when he notices the blood dripping from his fist. Dean must have hurt himself during his fit of rage.

“Let me?” Cas demands, stepping in front of his friend. 

Dean blinks at him, seeming to get out of a daze before looking at the hand extended between them. Cas points at the hunter’s own bleeding hand. When Dean still doesn’t seem to react, Cas put two fingers on the side of his forehead to heal him. He’s surprised when Dean’s face turns toward his hand, his cheek brushing Cas’ fingers in an obvious search of contact. Of comfort. 

Cas can hear the voice of Sam and the angels a few feet behind them as Dean closes his eyes and leans a little more against Castiel’s open palm. He looks almost reluctant, like he can’t help himself. Worried, Cas reaches with his Grace and finds Dean’s soul screaming in desperation. In need. Knowing Dean doesn’t like to appear vulnerable like this, Cas flies them back to his room. 

As soon as he realizes where they are, Dean deflates like the only string that was still holding him up just got cut. He falls a step forward and Castiel catches him by the shoulders, but Dean doesn’t seem to be falling as much as seeking more contact. His eyes are still closed as his forehead comes to rest against the angel’s temple. His warm breath is like a caress against Castiel’s cheek and the angel can feel himself tremble with the need for contact too. 

As an angel, Castiel never knew physical comfort until he met the Winchesters. Sam, Dean, and even Bobby were the one to teach him about the reassurance that a hug or a simple touch could bring. Even then, it had always been occasional, mostly in tense moments or after a life or death situation. For one night it turned into more for Dean and him. His human body was starved for touch, and they both leaned into the need for reassurance for a few hours. Just like with April, Cas found bliss in another human’s touch that night. Just like with April, he learned how hurtful the aftermath could be. 

Castiel will always remember the sheer amount of emotions he felt the first time his son grabbed his finger with his tiny little hand. The way he always seemed to calm down when Castiel would hold him against his chest taught him how important an innocent physical contact could be to humans. More than that, Cas too learnt to take comfort into the warmth of his son against him. Being a parent was the greatest challenge he’s ever lived through, surely the most stressful thing too, yet Jimmy taught him more about affection in a year than the Winchesters ever did. There was no modesty in the way a baby seeks comfort, no reason to hide behind the toxic precepts of masculinity like the Winchesters so often tend to do. 

Right now, the way Dean is instinctively seeking comfort in touches reminds Cas that this side of Jimmy comes from the hunter, from his human father. 

So, just like he did to Jimmy all those times, Cas brings an arm around the other man’s back. It's a habit too that has him deposit a tender kiss to Dean’s temple as one of his thumbs passes on his cheek in a soothing caress. Like Jimmy did so often, Dean leans into the touch. His response is nothing like Jimmy though, when he passes his lips over Cas’ mouth in response. 

For a second, Cas is so startled that he leans away, wide eyes meeting green ones. Dean seems as surprised and scared as Castiel feels, but there’s also a need there that Cas can feel reflected into the pit of his own stomach. Dean’s fingers slide hesitantly under his trenchcoat, brushing Cas’ hips in a silent question. Cas raises his chin in answer, offering his lips but not daring to take the final step himself. Dean’s eyes stay on his own, pupils getting wider as he gets closer, until his lips brushes the angels’ and makes them both shiver. 

Cas isn’t sure if the broken moan that resonates as they part again came from him or Dean, but in the next instant Dean’s mouth is back on his, more insistent. Castiel opens his lips in invitation. Dean’s tongue slides against his, and this time the moan definitely comes from the angel as the hunter devours his mouth with renewed passion. Two hands grab his hips, bringing him closer until their bodies collide against each other. The hunter slides a thigh between Cas’ and they both groan at the friction it creates. 

It suddenly doesn’t feel enough. Cas is craving the warmth of the hunter’s skin against his. He slides his hands under the other man’s t-shirt, passing on Dean’s stomach and up. In the next instant, Dean is pulling Cas’ trench coat and vest off his shoulder. As soon as his arms are free from the sleeves, the angel tries to do the same to Dean’s overshirt. He didn’t undo the few buttons on the front though and Dean’s arms get stuck. The hunter snorts against his mouth as Cas grunts in frustration. He bites the human’s lip and swallows his gasp when they suddenly find themselves naked against one another, clothes zapped away. They both moan in unison at the feeling of warm skin against warm skin. _Finally._

“Jesus,” Dean whispers, leaving Cas’ mouth long enough to gaze down at their bodies. 

“No. Cas,” Cas corrects. The hunter throws his head back a little in a laugh that turns into a gasp when the angel aligned his hips to his, their cocks sliding alongside each other for the first time. Cas trails his lips on the long neck suddenly exposed to him. Dean’s hands on his hips are guiding him to move in a languorous roll against his groin, the friction it creates making Cas’ head spin as all his blood rushes between his legs. 

Cas scratches his teeth along the sharp edge of the hunter’s jaw, savoring the way it makes Dean tremble against him. Cas is leaning forward to do it again, when the human catches his lips with his. A pinch to his nipple makes Cas gasp, and Dean takes the opportunity to deepen the kiss. 

Funny how food tastes like nothing but molecules to him, yet Dean tastes like everything good in the world. It makes Castiel crave more, makes him want to taste everything the hunter has to give him. He’s on his knees before he can even finish that thought. He never believed he would want to do that, isn’t even sure how he is supposed to do it, but he's suddenly burning with the need to put his mouth on the engorged member in front of him. 

It’s raised proudly, thick and just a little shorter than his own. It bounces a little when Dean moves his feet a little further apart, spreading his legs in invitation as his hand slides into Cas’ hair. The caress to his hair makes the angel look up.

Dean’s eyes are nothing but pupils right now, so dark with desire that it nearly makes the angel moan again with the force of his own want for this man. He can’t seem to turn away from the hunter’s gaze as he grabs the hot length and guides it closer to his mouth. His tongue catches the little droplet that gets out in response and Castiel tastes it like he might taste a rich wine, humming around it. 

The sight seems to be too much for Dean, who whimpers and throws his head back, his fingers tightening in Cas’ hair in an invitation to go back for another taste. Castiel gladly accepts it, sliding his tongue from root to tip a few times before he sucks the slightly redder head into his mouth. He sucks on it a little, trying to get it to give more of that taste he craves. He feels around until he finds that little slit at the tip, poking at it with his tongue. It makes Dean buck forward suddenly, his other hand coming to grab Cas’ hair too. He holds the angel’s head and seems to wait, not daring to move. Cas grabs Dean’s hips to stabilize himself and looks up, lips still wrapped tight around him.

The men’s eyes meet. Whatever question Dean was asking, he seems to find the answer he was seeking into the angel’s gaze because he starts to move slightly forward and back. Castiel moans when he realizes that his mouth is being fucked. _By Dean_. 

The burn between his legs feels suddenly unbearable, urgent, so Cas brings a hand between his legs, moaning around his mouthful as he finally strokes himself. He lets Dean move as he pleases, overwhelmed by the sensation of his own hand as well as the smell and taste of the hunter. It’s like nothing he’s ever felt before, better than his time with April, better even than the night Jimmy was conceived. Back then, it had been fast and fumbling, over before either of them could even really think about what they were doing. It had hurt as much as it had felt good, but here right now, all Cas can feel is sheer pleasure buzzing under his skin and in the bottom of his stomach. 

He squeezes his hand a little harder, moves it a little faster in rhythm with the thrusts of Dean into his mouth. He can feel the head of Dean’s cock bumping against the back of his throat every few thrusts and with a little surge of grace he erases the slight discomfort it brings. The hunter must feel it somehow, because he pushes deeper with a broken cry. He rests there for a few moments, looking down in amazement at Cas, his cock buried in the angel’s throat. 

Dean Winchester has always been the most beautiful human being to Castiel, but seeing him like this feels like a gift Cas doesn’t deserve. Dean’s cheeks and upper chest are flushed. His lips glistens, red and swollen. His eyes are wide with desire and what looks like amazement. Dean starts moving his hips again, finding a rhythm that makes little whines come out of his kiss bitten mouth every time he grazes the back of Castiel’s throat. His hair is spiked every which way, wet with sweat, as he starts to move faster and faster, his eyes raising toward the ceiling. Dean looks blissed out, and the thought that it’s because of _him_ makes Castiel strokes himself harder. His cock is twitching and making his own strokes slide easier and easier as he leaks beads of precome. He wonders for a second how _he_ would taste, if Dean would ever want to find out. The idea of plunging into Dean’s mouth just like Dean is in his own makes his hips stutters and Cas moans around the cock between his lips, his mouth slacking wider in pleasure. 

“Did you just-,” Dean starts, voice hoarse, “Fuck that’s hot,” he grunts. 

His hips grinds forward once, before he starts to get out of Cas’ mouth just as the first spurt of his release comes out. Castiel grabs the other man’s cock, ignoring the juice tainting his lips and bringing it back inside, making Dean shouts in surprise and delight at the sensation of Cas’ sucking all he has to give out of his cock. Castiel sucks and licks until the other man has nothing more to give, disappointed when Dean pushes him gently away, shivering with oversensitivity. This taste. It’s intoxicating and so purely Dean that Cas could drink it up all day. 

Castiel stays kneeled there, gasping with his cheek resting on the hunter’s thigh as he watches Dean's member getting softer, hypnotized and a little dazed by it all. A hand under his chin invites him to get back up. and Cas obeys, only getting out of his contemplation when his mouth is captured in another kiss. It feels good, mixing the taste from down here with the one up here and Castiel gets a little lost in it. Dean responds to his renewed passion with laziness, until the kiss gets so slow that it’s nearly tender. Soon they’re not doing much else than panting into each other's mouth, forehead against forehead as they try to calm their breaths. 

They stay like this for so long, eyes closed, that he can feel Dean starts to shiver, his sweaty skin cooling down against the frigid air of the bunker. Cas lets his hands caress Dean’s skin a last time before they’re both instantly cleaned and clothed again. 

Dean smirks against his mouth. “Damn, those powers really come in handy,” he whispers, getting back enough to be able to look into Cas’ eyes without getting cross eyed. 

Now that Dean isn't filling his whole vision anymore, Cas notices the yellow bunny abandoned on the bed.

 _Jimmy._ How could he forget, even for a second. 

The worries start flowing again, nearly drowning him as it pours through every part of him. It’s so violent that he physically vacillates, Dean’s hands catching his shoulders to stabilize him. They slide higher to his neck, thumbs gently forcing Cas’ chin up until his eyes are into Dean’s again.

“It’s gonna be okay, Cas. We’ll find him,” Dean assures, even though Cas can see the same worries reflected in green eyes. It makes his Grace reflexily reach out to soothe the fear in Dean’s soul. The feeling of Dean’s soul is so familiar that Cas suddenly gasps, taking a step back in shock. 

He’s known Dean’s soul better than anyone’s since the day he reached into the pit of Hell and encircled it into his own grace, embracing it with his true form until it pours into the very essence of him. He’s always been familiar with the feel of that beautiful soul, and it’s what made Dean’s absence so much more hurtful those first few months after he left. Because every time his Grace reached for his son’s, it would answer with a piece of Dean’s soul. 

“It’s _you._ You’re the way we’re gonna find Jimmy,” Cas realizes, his Grace pouring itself into Dean’s soul as it reminds him of the son he misses so much. “That’s how he found you. That’s why he always comes to you.”

“What are you talking about, Cas?” Dean says, looking confused. He looks ill at ease somehow, and Cas realizes that he can probably feel the intrusion of his Grace, unusually brusque and powerful. He holds back a little and Dean seems to relax. 

“Jimmy is a nephilim. He’s not just the result of our genetic material mixing, he’s also the result of your soul and my grace uniting. That’s where his power comes from, what makes him so special. There is nothing more powerful than a human soul, and his Grace is being powered by it,” Cas explains, his mind going a mile a minute. 

There must be a way...Cas reappears in the library, opening one of the books on nephilims. 

Jimmy’s soul was calling to Dean. That’s why he kept going to him, no matter how many times Castiel would fetch him back. He recognized it as part of himself, just like he recognized Cas as his father as soon as he was born, reaching for him with his body and mind that first time he grabbed his finger. 

Wherever Dean was, Jimmy would always come right back to him, would always find him. There must be a way they could reverse it. Jimmy’s Grace has been blocked by the collar, but those enochians symbols can’t have any power on the human part of Jimmy. If they could use Dean’s soul to track its other part…

“But how?” Sam asks, making Castiel realize that he was mumbling to himself as he searched through the book. He looks up to see the three angels and Sam right here in the room with him. 

“What the hell, Cas?” Dean asks as he comes into the room, looking pissed off by Cas’ sudden disappearance from the bedroom. 

“Jimmy was able to reach Dean’s soul by flying, but Dean can’t fly,” Sachiel points out, looking intrigued, if confused, by the idea. 

“What if he could fly?” Arariel squeaky voice suggests. “He could pinpoint Jimmy’s soul and fly right to him.”

“Humans can’t fly,” Rariel reminds, ever the pessimist. 

“What if he wasn’t human anymore?” Arariel says. 

“I understand your logic, Arariel, but the wards would block him if he had even an ounce of Grace inside him,” Castiel considers. 

“If I had what now?” Dean asks, dumbstruck, and getting ignored. 

“Are you talking about using Dean’s soul as a compass to find Jimmy?” Sam asks, seeming to follow way more easily than Dean is. 

“I don’t see how that could work. Again, Dean can’t fly,” Rariel ponders. 

Cas glares and Rariel seems to understand he should shut up. He’s not wrong though. For them to be able to bring back the fallen angel to Heaven, Naomi developed a Grace that could be injected. Every fallen angel had some Grace left and with the modified Grace's help, it could slowly grow back inside them, giving them their power back with time. That modified Grace could theoretically be injected into humans, be enough to grow on its own and turn anyone into an angel. They’ve thought about it, but never tried it. Arariel’s suggestion was smart, it could probably turn Dean into an angel, rendering him the ability to connect to Jimmy’s soul and fly to it. But him being human is the very thing that makes him able to reach Jimmy despite the wards on the collar. Yet not being able to fly makes it impossible for him to...it’s a damn vicious circle. 

“Does he necessarily need to fly? Couldn’t we use a location spell out of Dean’s soul or something?” Sam asks. 

“Human souls aren’t tangible enough for that kind of spell, they are too incorporeal to support the weight of the magic,” Sachiel explains. 

“Weight,” Castiel mumbles. He has a flash of what brought that idea in the first place. His true form carrying Dean’s soul out of Hell. “What if I carry his soul into my Grace?” he mumbles to himself, squinting at the book still in front of him, not seeing any of the words.

He remembers holding Dean’s broken soul into his incorporeal form as they ran out of Hell. How connected they were back then, how he poured himself into Dean to soothe the horrors tainting his beautiful light, how Dean imbibed some of his energy with a thirst for comfort that he had been denied for decades. In that moment, he could see everything that Dean was, every thought and feeling he ever had. 

“That could work,” Arariel says, wide eyed with excitement. “If you’re connected enough that you could read his soul, but not enough that your Grace is tainting him, his soul could guide you in the right direction. That’s an excellent idea, Castiel!”

From the corner of his eyes, Castiel can see Dean open and close his mouth a few times before crossing his arms. He knows he should explain things to him. If they are to do this, he’ll need Dean’s full understanding and consent. He just needs to be sure it can work first. 

“That’s not an excellent idea, that’s a reckless one!” Rariel protests. 

“I tend to be with Rariel on this one, Castiel,” Sachiel says, looking worried, “that kind of bond isn’t to be taken lightly. Grace and Soul aren’t meant to merge with each other.”

“Are you saying my son is an abomination, Sachiel? Because that sounds like one of Bartholemew’s line,” Cas says, short tempered. 

“No, of course not!” Sachiel defends, blanching. “Nephilim are created naturally, Castiel. They are our father’s creation as well as any angel or human being. But this...this will make irreparable damages to your Grace. It could burn out parts of Dean's soul too. It’s just never been done, Castiel. It sounds like too much of a risk,” Sachiel advises, shaking his head in reluctance. 

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take if it’ll save my son,” Castiel concludes. 

“Castiel-,” Rariel starts to say. 

“Anyone that doesn’t agree with this is free to leave,” Castiel says, eyes hard on the two angels. 

“I only wish to keep you safe, as well as your son, Castiel,” Sachiel concedes, solemn. “I’m first and foremost loyal to both of you, always.”

“I’ll help you anyway I can,” Arariel adds. 

“Naomi won’t agree with this,” Rariel notes, still looking worried. 

"Naomi can kiss our asses,” Dean interjects, gruffly, making Sam scoff. 

It releases some of the tension in the room. Even Rariel nods in what looks like acceptance, probably realizing that they won’t change their minds. He may be against the idea, but Castiel knows he’s loyal to him. He’s just always been cautious, and tends to be the voice of reason. 

There is no place for reason in Castiel's mind right now, his whole body burning with impatience now that he knows of a way to get his son back. 

“I still have no idea what’s going on, by the way,” Dean announces, waving his hands in the air. 

“You’ve lost me a while ago too,” Sam admits, lips pursed. 

“Arariel, can you explain everything to Sam? Rariel, Sachiel, I need you to go back to Heaven to talk to Naomi. She knows how Grace work better than anyone, I’ll need her advice on this,” Castiel orders. 

Both the angels nod and disappear. Arariel’s eyes pass from Dean to Cas a few times in worry before she gestures for Sam to follow her in the direction of the kitchen. 

Castiel leans back against the table, thinking over how to explain all this to Dean. 

“What did you understand so far?” 

Dean approaches slowly, grimacing in a self-deprecating mimic. He posts himself right in front of Castiel though, looking determinated. 

“That it’s reckless. Dangerous. Will probably cause lasting damages,” Dean lists. “But that it’s also the only way to get our son back.”

Cas inhales sharply when he hears Dean say ‘our son’. It makes his heart beat unnecessary fast in his chest. 

“Reckless and dangerous definitely sounds like a traditional Winchester’s plan,” Dean concludes with a smirk. “I trust you. I’m in.”

“Dean I appreciate your trust, but you can’t accept without knowing what it will entail,” Cas says, shaking his head. 

“What will it entail, then? Tell me.”

Cas opens his mouth. Close it. “I have no idea actually. It’s never been done before,” he admits, sheepish. “The closest anyone has ever come was me grabbing you from Hell.”

“So I’ll get a new handprint scar for a while, is that it?” Dean scoffs, unimpressed. 

“It wasn’t just a handprint, Dean. I know you can’t see it, but it left a permanent imprint on your soul as well as my Grace.”

“Our ‘profound bond’, right?” Dean concludes, mockingly quoting with his fingers. It makes Cas slightly smile. 

“As a matter of fact, yes. Except this time it will be infinitely more profound.”

Dean takes two steps closer, stepping between Cas’ feet. 

“So what, I’ll like you even more, is that it?” Dean teases. 

“You-What?” Castiel stutters. 

Dean looks like he’s blushing a little. “Come on, Cas, I thought what we did a few minutes ago was proof enough.”

“I- I didn’t really have time to think about it,” Castiel admits, dropping his eyes and frowning. He grabs the front of Dean’s shirt to stop the hunter when he tries to step back. “This is not rejection, Dean,” Cas points out, squeezing one of Dean’s hands. “I just never thought this would happen again.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Dean admits, scratching behind his ear with his free hand. “And now we’re supposed to go straight to soul marriage or whatever.”

“Well, we do already have a child,” Cas points out, tilting his head.

“We’re doing this all backward, aren’t we?” Dean scoffs, swaying a little, his hips knocking again the inside of Castiel’s thighs as he gets closer. 

They both jump apart when three angels appear in the room. 

Naomi has never looked more disapproving. 


	4. You're in my soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is shorter and focus on the new bond between Cas and Dean. I hope it's not confusing, it was kind of hard to write. 
> 
> **WARNING: There is a mention of DUBCON.** I don't think it warrants a tag because it's open to interpretation and not very explicit, but be warned. It's just a line and implied, but don't hesitate to tell me if you think I should still put a warning in the tags.

_My love for you is immeasurable_

_My respect for you immense_

_You're ageless, timeless, lace and fineness_

_You're beauty and elegance_

_**********************_

Dean observes Castiel and Naomi from afar as he bites into a sandwich. He can’t taste anything, hasn’t had any appetite since Jimmy disappeared, but Sachiel insists that he’ll need energy for the bonding ceremony, so Dean eats the food that has been put in front of him. 

The conversation between Castiel and Naomi doesn’t look as heated as Dean expected. He’s never really known Naomi, although what he has seen and heard about her doesn’t exactly make Dean like her. Last time he heard about her, she was on his enemy list, yet here she is now, touching Cas’ elbow and looking at him with giant blue eyes that shine with concern. 

She puts a hand on Cas’ cheek, passing a thumb on his cheekbone. The fact that Cas isn’t pushing her away makes something in Dean’s gut twist unpleasantly. He drops his sandwich into his plate, he can’t stomach anything anymore. 

He looks up when the two angels take a step back from each other, finally getting some much needed distance between them. Naomi bows her head in what looks like acquiescence and respect. They both turn their heads toward him and Dean fights the instinct to drop his eyes to hide the fact that he was watching them. Instead, he looks Naomi straight on. He hates the little smirk that appears at the corner of her mouth. She says something that he’s too far to hear and Castiel smiles, nodding his head. Dean glares at her a little harder. 

*************************

“You’re sure you’re willing to do this?” Castiel asks as Dean lies down on his bed. 

The angel has already asked him a bunch of times, hearing the same answer every time, so Dean just rolls his eyes and pats the space beside him on the bed. 

“Come on, let’s get bonded and get our son back,” Dean invites, impatient to get on with it. “Which is a sentence that I never thought I would say, by the way,” he jokes, blushing a little as Cas lays next to him and takes his hand. 

The hunter can’t help but scowl at Naomi as she puts a hand on Cas’ shoulder to lean over his body. Castiel brings their joined hands up and she ties some kind of fabric band around their wrists. Golden symbols are stitched on it. Dean can immediately feel his arm tingling with the magic it emates.

“Your bodies will stay safe here while your essences fly away. You will be able to see Jimmy, but whatever happens, you need to stay calm and come back here as soon as you’ve located him. You can’t get noticed. Your incorporeal form will render you vulnerable, and we can’t risk any of Bartholemew’s crew seeing you,” Naomi explains, stepping back and going to the little table where Sam and Arariel are preparing some ingredients. On the other side of the bed, Sachiel and Rariel are standing with their angel blades to their side, surrounded by four other angels. They’re ready to fly to the location as soon as Castiel and Dean are back with it. 

It’s a little weird having so many people in his bedroom. Not as weird as the fact that he’s going to go incorporeal and fly right into Cas’ arms in a few minutes to merge with him or whatever. But still weird. 

“Do you even have arms in your true form?” Dean wonders. 

“Of course, I do. I have six arms, three paws and eight tentacles.”

Dean turns his head toward Cas in shock. The angel is smirking and Dean can’t tell if he’s being serious or not. Guess he’ll find out.

“You’re sure it won’t burn out my eyes or something, right?” Dean asks, getting nervous as Sam starts lighting some candles. Why is there always so many candles during spells anyway? Is it for the ambiance or is it really necessary?

“Your soul doesn’t have eyes, Dean,” Arariel points out as she surrenders the bed with some kind of purple powder. 

Castiel squeezes his hand. “You need to relax, Dean. Your body won’t be able to release your soul if you’re clutching it as you are right now.”

“I’m doing what now? How can you even tell?”

“I can always tell, Dean,” Castiel says, like it’s a normal thing to see right through his soul. “I’ll probably be able to tell even more about what you’re feeling after we bond. You know that, right?” Cas asks, looking like he’s going to ask if Dean is sure again. 

Dean gulps a little nervously. He’d rather not think too much about what Cas could see. “Let’s do it.”

He sends a look toward Sam and Naomi. They nod and start reading the incantation. It’s the same text, but Sam is reading in latin while Naomi reads it in enochian. 

“Focus on Jimmy, Dean. You need to reach for him with your whole soul,” Arariel recommends. Like an afterthought, she deposits Jimmy’s little yellow bunny on Dean’s chest before stepping back. 

Dean takes a deep breath, squeezes Cas’ hand and focuses on the bunny. There’s a fire starting from the point of contact with Castiel and going up along his arm, burning more and more as Sam and Naomi continue to speak. The room shines brighter and brighter until Dean can’t keep his eyes open anymore. 

He closes his eyelids and imagines the crystal laugh of his son, the way his nose scrunch up just before he cries, the little point of his tongue poking out as he smiles, his pudgy hands grabbing Dean's cheeks as he observes him with a familiar squint and head tilt.

He can’t screw this up. They need to find their son. 

  
  


*************************

At first, he panics. The sensation of _being,_ without any sense to rely on, is disorienting. He feels like he’s nowhere and everywhere at the same time, floating into nothingness. 

_Incorporeal._

It’s the most terrifying feeling, it’s nothing and everything, nil and infinity at the same time. If he had lungs he would be panting, but he has no lungs no legs no heart. The silence is encompassing without the constant beating of his heart in the background. 

Then all of sudden he can feel it. It’s surrounding him, encompassing him, inside and out. It’s everywhere. 

_Cas._

Dean doesn’t know how, but he knows without a single doubt that this thing, this wave encircling him, is Cas. 

_Soul has no eyes_ , he remembers, but oh how he wishes he could see it, see what Castiel looks like in all his glory, his true form. Instead when he reaches for him, it’s only in an immaterial way. He can feel how powerful, how pure Cas true essence really is. 

It purrs over him until there is no panic left, no fear, just a conscious thought of existing. It’s warm without fire, the most beautiful melody without sound and the softest silk without touch. Dean can’t help but want to get closer, to melt into it until it encompasses his whole existence. 

Something tries to push him away and he feels himself floating away, he feels himself being nothing again. Panic rises again. When the presence brushes him again, Dean grabs onto it in desperation, grabs so hard that he can feel himself pouring into the ethereal being surrounding him. It squirms to get away, but Dean is terrified, he can’t let go, he can’t let the only thing making him feel alive get away. So he grows, he grows around that reassuring wave until he’s all around it, and he squeezes and presses until he is entirely surrounding it. He feels a crack open up under the pressure, and he rushes to fill it, to get inside. To get to safety. 

Dean looks around. He can’t feel the ground under his feet, can’t see his body, he’s still as weighless and incorporeal, yet he is _somewhere._ He can’t feel the rain hitting his skin, he doesn’t have skin, but he can see the droplets of water falling, and can hear the splash they make as they hit the pavement. He looks around with no eyes. It’s a dark street, illuminated only by streetlight and the reddish glow of a neon sign. He can feel the cold seeping into his bones, the hunger in the pit of his stomach.

No, not his.

He has no body, but he is inside someone's mind. He feels the discomfort of wet socks slouching in their shoes every time they move. He can feel how lost they feel, the despair the person feel as they squeeze themselves, trying to make their body smaller to fit under the small alcove of a doorstep, to protect themselves from the pouring rain. 

It’s like being inside that body, like being that person and looking at him from outside at the same time. It makes Dean wonder if that’s how it feels to possess someone. 

Wait...he isn’t actually possessing someone, is he?

There’s the sensation of something pushing him, a distinct rush sensation and everything disappears around him. Dean tries to grab his surroundings, to stay. Even this miserable place is better than the nothing he was in before. Images start passing all around him, as if he’s running from one scene to another or living his life in flash forward. He can see _a pretty face, blonde hair, the flash of a nice smile, a hand gripping his back. Nervousness and anticipation. Their hips are moving, everything feels too hot and wet and good. Sex,_ Dean recognizes. Everything is going so fast that he can barely grasp what's happening. Suddenly there is _fear, betrayal, a knife plunging into his torso then nothing. Blackness and then green eyes. Me,_ Dean realizes. He’s looking at his own face, painted with despair then relief. 

_Cas,_ his voice says _._

Dean realizes what that was. April. He’s inside Cas’ memories. 

It all accelerates again, his surroundings moving too fast to really process anything. _Warm water again. Happiness, relief. The bunker, he recognizes. Warm food in his stomach and safety. Home._

_“You can’t stay.”_

_Everything falls apart around him._

He’s back in the darkness again, the ethereal presence having pushed him back, away from the memory and the devastation it emated. It’s almost a relief to feel nothing again. Was that how Cas felt that day?

The wave pokes at him, insistent as it tries to guide him. But they are floating into nothingness, why would it matter where they go? There is no light nor wind here, just him and that wave brushing against him in a language he doesn’t understand. He brushes back, feels a breach and sneaks back inside, ignoring the aggravation he can feel from the other being. 

He recognizes the Gas n Sip this time. _Elation, proudness as he puts on the blue vest for the first time, but sad, so sad still. The name on the tag is not his name. He feels the hard cold floor under his back, the shame as he rushes to get up before someone sees him sleeping there. The loneliness seeping into him as he sleeps every night alone in a room barely bigger than a closet, surrounded by cardboard boxes. Longing. Watching a cellphone hundred times a day, wishing for it to ring. Self-hate. Despair. The images rush through days that all look the same. Inadequacy. Observing people go through their life. How do they do it? Watching a can of soup he can’t find how to open, stomach gurgling in hunger. Idiot, regrets. Longing for family. For anyone._

Then suddenly he’s back. _Dean. Hope, resentment. Worry, fear, hurt. People are dying, one of his siblings is killing them. Nora’s daughter crying in his arms._

Dean’s soul stumbles on this image. A baby. It makes his incorporeal being tremble, the wave pressing insistently on him, trying to tell him something. What is he forgetting?

By the time he catches back to what is going on, he’s in a vaguely familiar bathroom. He’s been there before. He sees Cas’ reflection in the mirror for a second. _Hope burns in his chest._ Cas gets out of the bathroom and Dean’s own soul screams with the memory. 

Dean wants to get out. He doesn’t want to see this. He can feel the happiness, the hope burning into his chest, no, Cas’ chest. He doesn’t want to see this. Dean pushes against the wave surrounding him, tries to find the breach again, to get out, but somehow the wave squeezes tighter around him, keeping him right where he is. Everything seems to slow down around him, no longer a fast blur, the seconds ticking by at their normal pace. 

_“You can take one of my shirts,” Dean hears his doppelganger say._

_Incomprehension, looking down at his body, only wearing white boxer brief._

_“This is how I generally sleep. Clothes get rumpled if you sleep in them.”_

_“That’s why they invented pajamas, Cas.”_

_Shame. He doesn’t own pajamas. He barely has enough shirts to get through the week._

_“There’s pizza if you want some.”_

_Hunger. Always hunger in this human body. He opens the box. Disappointment. He hates peppers, he doesn’t like the taste and they always make him sick. Dean can’t know that. Dean doesn’t know him as a human. He feels drained all of a sudden. He eyes the bed. Dean is lying on his stomach on it, chest on a pillow on the side where feet should be as he watches the small TV in front of him. Uncertainty. He doesn’t know why Dean brought him here, what is expected of him tonight. The carpet on the ground looks more comfortable than the concrete in the store’s. It’s better to sleep here than there. Dean is here, of course it’s better. More confusing though. Making a hope he doesn’t want to believe in curl in his stomach. Longing for a home. Companionship._

Dean’s soul thrashes again, barely managing to get out of the memory before he’s shoved back in, forced to watch. 

When Dean’s soul looks back inside _it’s dark in the motel’s bedroom. Cas is under the covers. He can hear Dean's breath just behind him. Sometimes he feels the air of it brushing against the back of his neck, making him shiver. Neither of them are sleeping and they both know it. They've never shared a bed before and it's making him nervous, self conscious of his every moves. Cas curls up a little more and can’t quite keep his sigh in. There’s a shift of sheets behind him, the noise of Dean sliding closer._

Dean’s soul presses against the walls of the memory, reticent to see what follows. He remembers the curl of jealousy he had been feeling at that moment. He was thinking about how Cas wanted to date Nora, how he slept with April, how every time Dean saw him those days, Cas was courting another girl. It was unfair and he knew it, but he couldn’t help but feel possessive, feel like it was a betrayal. Cas was _his_. 

The wave ripples around him in shock and Dean realizes that he’s somehow broadcast his own feelings. He wants to curl up in shame, but it only brings him back closer to the scene he was trying to avoid. 

_Dean’s lips are on the back of Cas’ neck now, hesitant as his fingers brush the other man's side. They both stay immobile for a long moment, not even daring to breathe. Comfort. Longing. Cas’ hands close around the one on his hip, bringing it both against his chest, Dean’s body following and sliding closer. It’s innocent enough until a leg slides between Cas’ thighs, until the brush of lips turns into kisses then bites. Doubt. The hand releases his, sliding further and further down. Under fabric. Need. Hesitation, incomprehension, what does it all mean. Bliss as the hand starts to touch._

Dean’s soul roars at the intensity of the feelings he’s absorbing. 

_Unexpected pain. Too dry, too fast. Ragged breath in his ear. Desperation building, keeping him from getting away. He needs_ him _to stay. To be good enough that Dean will stay._

Dean’s soul thrashes against the wall so hard that it breaks down and lets him out. The emptiness feels better, less hurtful. He can feel the Wave hovering close, but not daring to approach, letting him calm down. 

Is that how Cas lived that moment? Did he...did he let Dean do this so he wouldn’t abandon him again? 

As if he can hear the thought, the Wave enveloppes him again, pushing around him when Dean’s soul tries to get away. Dean is sucked into a breach, unable to hold back to the nothingness. 

_Desperation. Panic. Fear. Cas is standing in front of a mirror, looking down at a slight bump under his stomach. Incomprehension. Lost._

Dean’s soul is still miserably curling up, crushed from the realization of it all. The Wave pushes him until they fast forward to another scene. 

_He can’t protect you, Castiel. He’s not what you need. You need to be with family._

Naomi. 

_“You’re not my family anymore,” Castiel is saying. Sadness. Lost. “They are. Dean is.”_

_“Then where is he right now?”_

_Despair. Longing. Loneliness._

_“He’ll hurt you again. You know he will.”_

Dean’s soul reacts to this so viscerally that they’re suddenly surrounded by the bunker’s kitchen. Castiel is standing behind the counter, visible for the first time outside of a mirror. This is my mind, Dean realizes. The Wave floats all around, on the inside of Dean’s mind, curious yet hesitant. 

_“You’re avoiding me, barely talking to me. I’m trying, here, Cas.”_

_Longing. Despair._ The Wave grow larger, taking it in. 

_“And I’m not? I’m here, Dean. I’m... I’m giving you, us, another chance.”_

_Hope. Then fear, crippling. What if I screw it up and lose him,_ the sound of this thought is booming in the space around them, the Wave goes still.

_“Us? There is no us, Cas, not like that,”_

_Regrets. Idiot. No choice. Can’t lose him._

The Wave brushes against Dean’s soul, interrogative. 

_“We’re not friends anymore, Dean.”_

_Pain. Crushed. Regrets. Guilt. Panic. Fear. Don’t make me lose him._

_“Let me call Sam back, I promise I’ll explain everything.”_

_“I thought I could trust you with this, but it was a mistake. My mistake. I should go.”_

_No. Please no. Begging. Desperation._

_“Cas, come on. This is your home. I want you to stay.”_

_Please stay with me._

_“This isn’t my home, Dean. It never was.”_

The Wave is a blur as it trashes around, overwhelmed by the pain floating around them. It passes near Dean’s soul and Dean grabs it. The Wave's momentum cause them to clash violently against one another, rolling right out of the scene and back into the emptiness. The Wave is melting against Dean’s soul as Dean pulls just as hard against it. They wriggle against each other, trying to soothe the pain they can feel emanating from each other. When they finally stop moving, they’re so intertwined that Dean can’t tell where he begins and where the Wave stops. 

They stay like this for a moment before the Wave suddenly starts to move with urgency again, pulling on Dean until he slides into a new breach. 

_They’re in a white room. The sound of birds singing is coming through a window from which they can see trees. Outside, a red and yellow kite is floating in the blue sky._ The wave pushes Dean’s soul away from the window and toward the corner of the room. _Cas is sitting in a rocking chair, humming as he slowly balances back and forth. He’s holding a light green blanket against his chest, his eyes on it, a small smile appearing on his face at the sound of a tiny gurgled sound._

_A first laugh._

_Love. Devotion. Fatherhood._

_Jimmy._

Dean’s soul inflates in remembrance before it starts flying around in urgency. 

_Jimmy._

That’s what this is all about. 

He needs to find Jimmy. Dean’s soul thrashes around the room, flying directionless, until the Wave comes straight at him, encircling him and bringing him back next to the rocking chair. It pushes Dean’s soul until it’s hovering right above the face of the tiny baby that Cas is holding, until it looks like the baby is looking at him, smiling with a little pink tongue pushing on his bare gums. 

A loud shriek resonates in the room, but it isn’t the baby in front of him that is crying. It seems to be coming from the other side of the room and Dean’s soul rushes to it. The sound is coming from the other side of the wall, but there is no breach to pass through. Dean's soul tries to break the wall, bump into it again and again as Jimmy continues to cry on the other side, but he can’t get through. The Wave comes poking at him in askance. Dean’s soul bumps into the wall again, trying to show him, but the Wave tilts slightly to the side in incomprehension. 

Can’t it hear it? Jimmy is right _there_. 

They need to get to him. They need to…

_Humans can’t fly_

This room. There are inside Cas’ memory, inside Cas’ mind. Outside of it, there is only nothingness and Dean has no control there, can only float aimlessly. Unless he’s grabbing onto the Wave. 

_What if I carry his soul into my grace?_

The bond. 

Dean knows exactly where to go, but he needs Cas to lead him there. The only way to get Jimmy back is _together._

Dean’s soul comes closer to the Wave as it hovers in uncertainty. He reaches for it and the Wave immediately reaches back, grabbing eagerly at the tendrils of soul Dean is extending its way. They get closer and closer. Dean curls himself up and nudges against the center of the Wave. The Wave doesn’t move for a moment, poking curiously at him, so Dean’s soul nudges back. It doesn’t understand. Dammit. Dean concentrates, elongating until his form can reach the edges of the Wave and pull it close around him. The wave executes itself warily, enclosing his edges around the soul. It’s hugging him, holding it in its center, yet it’s not moving in the direction Dean wants it to. He doesn’t know how to communicate with it. 

He remembers earlier, how he managed to pull the wave into his own memory, how his desperation to be heard and understood was broadcasted so strongly that the Wave became agitated. 

He needs to open up, he realizes. He needs to let the wave inside if he wants it to hear him. 

He doesn’t know how to do it. He tries to bring back the same memory, the moment Cas left him and went back to Heaven. He can feel the breach of the memory opening, but the Wave doesn’t seem interested in going back there, it just stays curl around Dean, gently floating to the sound of Cas humming to baby Jimmy in the background. This memory is peaceful and tender and yet somehow Dean can’t stand to be here any longer. He feels a surge of sadness and the Wave pokes at him in askance.

It felt it, Dean realizes.

Dean’s soul forces himself to look back toward Cas and Jimmy. He looks straight at them and lets everything it’s making him feel pour into the Wave surrounding him. 

_Affectation. Tenderness. Envy._ He focuses on that last emotion as it’s the one burning the brightest. Dean isn’t in this memory. It’s a moment he never lived, and will never be able to get back. _Sadness_. It was one of his son's first moments and he couldn’t be here. He wasn’t here for his first laugh, just like he wasn’t there for his first smile, or first tooth. He wasn’t there for his birth. He’ll never get to hold him as an infant. He didn’t get to be there for Castiel either. He wasn’t by his side when his friend was scared or in pain. Dean will never know how round Cas’ belly got. He’ll never know the feeling of his son’s kick under Cas’ skin. 

The wave is getting agitated around him again, trying to get away, but Dean holds on to it, doesn’t let it back away. 

Dean missed the first eleven month of his son’s life. He has no idea where he lived, who he loved, or what lullaby he loves the most. 

He’ll never be able to get those moments back, but he can get his son back. 

That seems to startle the Wave. 

He can get his son back _right now,_ they just have to freaking _move_ , to get out there and _save him._

Dean can hold him again. Can hold him for the first time knowing Jimmy is his son. He couldn’t be there for Jimmy’s first crawl, but he can be here for his first steps. He can be here for his first words. He can be here to hear him sing for the first time, say his first swear words, tell his first joke and recite his first lesson, and to teach him to read and count. He can be the father Jimmy deserves to have. 

They can be the parents Jimmy deserves to have, together. 

But they need to _move_. 

The Wave holds on to him tighter, so tight that he can feel part of it burn him. It’s the least of his worries as they start to fly closer and closer to where Dean can hear his son cry. He reaches for Jimmy, pouring all his feelings into the Wave, into Cas, to guide him.

Relief floods him and makes them both stronger and faster when Dean can feel Jimmy reaching back in return. 

  
  



	5. In our screams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little late again, sorry! But I have a very good excuse, I bought a house today!!
> 
> Here is the new chapter. I can't believe this story is already coming to an end. I'll post the last chapter and epilogue on Saturday and then that will be it!
> 
> There will be another story coming soon. I haven't had time to look at it for a while, but there is already like forty pages of it and I'm hitching to finish it. It's another AU, kind of an Office!AU except it's during quarantine. Cas is Dean new boss (that he hates) and one day after a zoom meeting, Dean forgets to cut off his camera feed... 
> 
> Anyway, have a good read and please tell me what you think, I thrive on your comments ;-)

_   
_ _ You're the best team I've ever seen _

_ And there have been many affairs _

_ Many times I've thought to leave _

_ But I bite my lip and turn around _

_ 'Cause you're the warmest thing I've ever found _

  
  


******************

Dean screams as he feels himself falling and falling until he suddenly lands right into his body. Every single one of his muscles tense up, his back arching so much that only the point of his head and the heel of his feet are touching the bed as he blinks at the ceiling. There are dark spots in front of his eyes hiding a light so bright that he can feel tears leaking down his face as it burns down his retina. His mouth is open but his throat is closed up, no air passing to his lungs for a moment so long that he thinks he’ll suffocate. 

Hands grab his shoulders, pulling him down. Dean gasps and pants, sucking in as much oxygen as he can as it finally inflates his lungs again. He feels unsettled, like he can’t fit inside his skin anymore. His soul is too big, pushing against his skin. He feels like his body will crack under the pressure any minute now, skin stretched so far that it will split. 

It feels like a long time and no time at all before the pain abates all at once. His body sinking into the mattress beneath him as it finally relaxes. Dean blinks a few times before he can actually process the fact that his eyes are looking at a grey ceiling, until he can remember what a ceiling even is. 

_ Jimmy.  _

He sits up so suddenly that he would have fallen down if it wasn’t for a hands holding on his shoulders. Sam is by his side, looking anxious and agitated as he looks his big brother over, as if to check for injuries. 

“It’s okay, Dean. You’re back.”

Dean ignores him, turning his head the other way. The other side of the bed is empty. The room is empty, saved from Sam and him. 

“Have they already gone?” Dean croaks, voice hoarse. It makes him wonder if he was screaming. He has no idea how long it took him to wake up, how long before his soul left his body.

“There’s been a new developpement,” Sam says, shaking his head. “Bartholemew sent us a message.”

Dread fall over Dean for a moment, images of head or body parts in boxes like in the movies. But Jimmy was fine. He could feel him being fine. More and more upset as he could feel Dean close and not go to him, but okay. 

*************

They arrive into the library just in time to see Castiel fist hit the table in anger, and Dean vacillates against the sudden wave of fury he feels. It’s not his own, he realizes. Just like when they were in Cas’ memory, he can recognize it, yet he’s not exactly feeling it. It’s just there. They are still connected. 

Like he can feel something too, Cas turns toward him, eyes wide in surprise. 

“What happened?” Dean asks, voice firm despite his anxiety. This whole bond thing isn’t the priority right now, they can figure it out later. “What are you still doing here?!”

He looks to the garrison that was standing next to his bed, that was supposed to go straight to Bartholemew as soon as they had his location. They drop their eyes in deference when he glares at them, just standing there  _ doing nothing.  _

“Bartholomew sent us a message,” Naomi explains.

“What message?” Dean insists, impatient. 

“They’ll give us Jimmy back if we deliver them vials of our new Grace.”

“Your what now?”

“The modified Grace we used on the fallen angels,” Castiel resumes. 

He’s told Dean about this. Once the angels had fallen, they were basically humans. Naomi managed to replicate the process she used to make her own Grace regrow after she died to give the angels their powers back. 

“They want to become angels again,” Sam realizes. 

Castiel drops his eyes and Dean realizes what is happening too. 

“You can’t let them do that,” Dean notes. 

“Bartholomew doesn’t just want his fideles to become angels again, he wants to reign over part of Heaven.”

“That’s bullshit!”

“He can’t seriously believe that you’ll agree to that,” Sam notes. 

“If we don’t, he keeps Jimmy,” Naomi says. “In a few years, a nephilim as powerful as Jimmy will be able to make them angels again. Bartholomew knows he’ll get what he wants either way, it’s all just an act so that he can say that he tried to negotiate a treaty and avoid war.”

“A treaty? He freaking kidnapped our kid! As far as I’m concerned, he’s already declared war on us!”

“I agree,” Cas says, gritting his teeth. 

Naomi sighs like they already had this conversation. 

“We know where they are, why are we still talking about this when we should shove war up their asses right now?” Dean rages. Naomi sent him an annoyed look, probably at his colorful language. “Cas!” Dean urges. 

The angel is leaning on the table, fists closed on it and head hanging between his shoulders.  “The house they are in is warded, we can’t get in,” he admits. Dean can feel it’s not the only reason though. 

“We’re working on ways to drop the wards,” Arariel says. Dean didn’t even notice her standing there. “We would appreciate your help on the matter, Sam. Castiel drew us a copy of the wards and they look very similar to those that were protecting the bunker. They can probably be broken the same way,” she pauses, looking hesitantly toward Naomi and Castiel, “if...if we decide to do it, of course.”

Cas nods and Arariel gestures for Sam to follow her. Sam hesitates, looking from Dean to Cas and obviously wanting to hear more. Dean makes him sign to go though. The faster those wards are broken, the faster they can get Jimmy back. He just has to convince the angels to get their heads out of their own asses first. Cas first. 

The silence that follows is tense as Dean tries to calm himself enough to try and understand what is happening here.

“Why does Arariel seem to think we wouldn’t decide to do it?” There. Not exactly calm, but already more articulate than he would have been before he took a few deep breaths. He can feel Castiel’s frustration too and it only exacerbates his own. 

“Most of those inside this house are humans,” Cas says. He looks more composed than Dean, but the hunter can feel his turmoils and knows that it’s all an act. 

“So? Doesn’t this make this  _ easier _ ?” 

“We don’t harm humans.”

“Since when?!” Dean exclaims. He’s seen angels kill humans before. Hell, most of the time they have about as much regard for human life as for the life of a mosquito. 

Cas sends him an annoyed look. He did tell him about the whole ‘human friendly’ Heaven, after all. Dean is all for that, but this is ridiculous.

“Ok, well, they’re not even humans, they’re fallen angels. Here is your loophole, let’s GO,” Dean tries to rationalize, eyes flashing. Why are they still talking when they should be doing something? 

_ “Dean, _ ” Cas groans in frustration. 

They glare at each other for so long that even Naomi starts fidgeting. 

“Valuing human life is one of the pillars of the New Heaven we’ve worked to create this last year,” Naomi explains, voice firm but calm despite the tension building in the room. “We’ve scoured centuries to find vessels that would suit us without endangering or hijacking their lives. People on the verge of dying, from cerebral or natural death, mostly,” she says, designating the angels around them. “We do not abide putting humans' lives in danger for our own gain anymore. Those fallen angels have vessels that we can’t compromise by subjecting them to the violence that would result from an assault on this house.”

Dean turns his glare to her. She doesn’t even flinch. 

“Believe me, Dean, I want to get Jimmy back as much as you do. I care about this child. We all do,” she says more softly, looking sincere and pained. “But we can’t compromise our own principles for this. We adopted them  _ for  _ Jimmy, he won’t be the reason we break them.”

“It’s what Bartholomew wants,” Cas spits. “He wants to prove that New Heaven can’t be held by these rules. That angels’ lives are more important than those of our vessels, even when it’s only a half angel like Jimmy,” he says, shaking his head as his eyes drop to the table. “We would only prove him right by attacking.”

“And what the fuck do we gain by doing nothing?!” Dean screams. 

Nobody answers him. 

“Well, I’m not leaving my child in the hands of that psycho just so you can have the moral highground,” Dean spits. “I’m going.”

When he turns around, two angels are immediately right there, each one with a hand on his shoulders to hold him back. 

“Leave him,” Cas orders from behind, after a few seconds of tension. 

Dean sends him a last glare over his shoulder before he goes straight to the armoury.

**************

Dean is preparing his bag, shoving weapons inside. Dean swears when he grabs a knife so hard in anger that he opens his palm. The hunter turns around, searching for a rag to put around his bleeding hand. He tenses when he sees Castiel at the door. 

“You’re not holding me back,” Dean threatens, hand sliding menacingly toward an angel blade. 

“I never intended too,” Cas answers, rolling his eyes at Dean’s posturing before he deflates. “You really think I wouldn’t do anything I possibly could to save Jimmy?” He looks hurt by the notion. 

“You sure don’t look like you’re doing much.”

Castiel throws a look over his shoulder before he steps inside and closes the door. 

“I can’t break the rules that I’ve instated, Dean. Heaven has never been more peaceful than it has been for the last year. After all the angels have lived through those last few years, finding a new equilibrium wasn’t easy, accepting change after millennials wasn’t easy. Those rules are the only thing keeping us-”

“Oh stop it with the damn politician speech,” Dean says, exasperated. He angrily shoves a jar of holy oil into the bag, groaning in irritation when he can’t quite close the zipper of the bag around it.

“I can’t break those rules, Dean,” Cas repeats. “But  _ you _ don’t have to abide by them.”

“Of fucking course I don’t!” Dean declares, shoving the half closed bag over his shoulders. “And I don’t give a fuck what you’re doing, Cas, but I’m getting my son back,” he declares, walking to the door. 

Cas grabs his forearm to stop him as he passes next to him.  “I  _ know _ , Dean,” Cas pleads. He plants himself right in front of the other man, barring his route and looking at him until Dean finally stops glaring at the wall. Their eyes meet and Dean feels like an idiot. 

“Oh.” Of course. Everything is so clear in Cas’ eyes as well as in the Wave that seems to float all around him, encircling his body in a soft caress, begging him to understand. 

He does now. 

It has been what Cas wanted all along. He knew Dean wouldn’t just stand by and do nothing. Of course he knew. 

Castiel can’t do anything, as much because of the wards as because he can’t compromise his credibility by breaking his own rules, but he trusts Dean. It’s in his eyes and broadcasting directly into Dean’s soul right now. Cas trusts him to bring their son back, to keep Jimmy safe. 

Dean is opening his mouth to speak, but Cas signals him not to. A door probably can’t really stop angels from eavesdropping. 

Cas extends a hand, a question that Dean can’t quite understand in his eyes. The hunter nods yes anyway. Castiel's hand touches the side of Dean’s stomach and the human can’t quite contain his grunt of pain. Dean looks at his hand where the cut disappeared before raising his shirt. There on his right side, at the same place Castiel wears his own tattoo, a few enochians symbols have been raised on his skin in red scars. 

“These will protect you from the angels. Hide you,” Cas whispers. “I can’t do anything about the humans,” he admits regretfully. 

Dean’s lips are on the angel’s before he can think about what he’s doing, the kiss short but a little bruising. Their foreheads stay connected for an instant even as their mouths release one another. Their eyes meet again and Cas looks like he can hear the apology Dean is silently sending him. How could he ever doubt that anything else could be more important to Cas than Jimmy? How could he ever doubt Cas? Especially after all they’ve shared. Dean’s guilt is washed aside by a wave of reassurance and trust brushing his soul. 

“Pray to me, as soon as you’re outside of the wards,” Cas whispers. “Please, bring back our son.”

  
  


**************

When Dean gets to the garage, Sam is waiting, his bag already in the backseat. 

“Sam, no,” Dean says. 

“What do you mean 'no'? I’m not letting you go alone!”

“They need you here to work on the wards.”

“You need me there. You’re more important, Dean,” Sam insists, looking annoyed that his brother would reject his help. 

“No,  _ Jimmy  _ is more important. If anything happens to me, you’re the angels’ only chance to get into this house.”

“Then let me come with you so nothing happens to you.”

Sam bitchfaces, even though Dean can see that he realizes his big brother is right. 

“They won’t expect anyone inside. I’ll just slip in, take Jimmy, and get out. They won’t even notice me,” Dean reassures, raising the side of his shirt to show off his new tattoo. 

“What if they  _ do _ ?” Sam worries. 

Dean grins, wriggles his eyebrows and raises his bag. 

“That’s what the guns are for!”

  
  


*******************

Dean can tell he just passed the wards' line by the way Jimmy immediately starts to wail inside the house. He can somehow feel Jimmy’s soul reaching for him, an insistent tugging that makes him wonder how much his bond with Cas really changed him. He never used to feel things like this. Yet right now he can feel the exact place his son is detained in that gigantic house. 

Throwing a careful look around, he realizes he can also identify exactly which person is human or an angel, just by looking at them. 

“Awesome,” he mumbles. This is the kind of superpower that will come in handy in the future. 

Dean doesn’t have time to think too much on it though, as he sneaks to the closest windows. He peaks through three windows before he finds one that leads to an empty room. He doesn’t know how many people are inside, but there were already four in what looked like a living room and he’s seen five outside so far. 

He’s outnumbered. 

It doesn’t change anything though. He just needs to be discreet enough. He doesn’t plan on killing anyone either. He wants to. Damn, he wants to punch and stab all those assholes for hurting Jimmy, but he can’t help thinking about that New Heaven’s rule. And what a stupid name, by the way, so cheesy that it can only be Cas that came up with it. It sounds like some kind of beach town or something. Anyway. In all those years fighting, Dean has learned not to linger on the fact that for every demon or angel he killed, he was also killing an innocent person. Now Cas and stupid Naomi just reminded him of it, and he can quite bring himself to just fire his grenade launcher right at the house like he had briefly entertained. 

It’s so much easier to win when you don’t play fair and consider things like innocent lives or whatever. Huh. Fucking Cas giving a conscience to Heaven and Hunters alike. Only him. 

Dean might still stab someone if he’s provoked, maybe just not in a lethal way. Probably. 

Jeez, how much of a psychopath has he become that he’s longing for some stabbing?

The latch of the window finally clap free, the sound a little louder than Dean feels comfortable with. He waits a few seconds to make sure no one is going to come investigate the noise. When nothing comes, he lifts the window open and slips inside, immediately rolling to hide behind a large desk. He’s in what appears to be an office. The door is wide open and he can see the house's entrance and the stairs to the first floor. 

Jimmy’s cries are coming from downstairs though. And who the hell put a baby in a basement? Freaking assholes, he rages as he slides to the door, sending a glance in the corridor to situate himself. He immediately hides back inside when he hears a door opening at the hand of the hall. The way Jimmy’s cries get louder tells him that it’s definitely the way to the basement and he throws a quick glance to spot the right door before it closes. 

“Why is he crying now? Can’t someone make that brat shut up, or do I have to go there myself?!” comes a loud voice, closer and closer until Dean can just about see the face of the bald muscled man that is yelling. Oh he’s definitely stabbing that guy. 

The bald asshole just opens the door to the basement to shout some orders to someone’s downstairs before he turns around. Dean bends the knees, waiting for the man to pass right by the door. As soon as he does, Dean locks an arm around his neck and squeezes as hard as he can. The man may be human, but he’s still far stronger than Dean and it’s a risky move. The hunter’s feet don’t touch the ground as the man thrashes, barely able to keep him from hitting the wall to alert his stooges. Dean sighs in relief as the man starts drooping in his hold and catches him under the armpits just before he can fall to the ground. He pulls him until the man is hidden behind the big desk, so no one passing the office will be alerted. 

He looks down to make sure the man is unconscious, fingers twitching next to his angel blade, nearly wishing for the guy to wake up so he can actually stab him. Bald Asshole doesn’t even twitch though, out like a light for at least a good half hour. 

Dean takes out two other men and a woman, stashing their unconscious bodies in empty rooms before he can finally reach the basement. He’s been lucky so far to only encounter humans, because an angel would be much harder to take out safely and silently. Cas was right though, there are mostly humans here. He’s only seen three angels for now, two guarding the house from outside, and one in the living room. He can feel an angel presence buzzing in the basement. It’s somehow muffled, its presence less imposing than the others and Dean hopes it means it’s Jimmy. 

He goes down the first stairs leading to the basement on the tip of his toes, closing the door behind him and latching it. It won’t stop the angels, but that should slow down the humans. 

His gasp is half-horror and half-relief when he finally sees Jimmy. Relief at finally seeing him again. An Indian guy in a dark suit is holding him against his chest, trying to soothe him as Jimmy squirms and wails, extending his arms in the direction Dean is in, hidden behind the wall separating him from the room his son is in. Horror because they’ve put his infant son inside a freaking holy oil circle. Dean suddenly understands Cas’ lack of humor when he jokingly suggests it in the past because he wants to  _ throttle _ anyone that dared do this to his son. The circle is only about eight square meters large with just a crib and a mattress on the ground inside. 

Dean realizes that the man holding his son is an angel and from the state of disarray his suit is in, probably not one of Bartholomew’s. He’s a prisoner, put there to care for Jimmy. Dean tries to remember the name of the angel that has infiltrated Bartholomew’s ranks and disappeared. Tyrell? Tuniel?

“Dean Winchester,” the man calls when he sees him. 

Jimmy wails even louder when he sees him, nearly falling from the angel’s arms when he throws himself toward Dean with all his might. His face is red and drenched with tears as he tends his chubby arms in his father’s direction. Dean can feel his own eyes burn, chest squeezing with the flood of emotions invading him. He barely hesitates before he jumps over the fire line and rushes to him. Jimmy grabs him immediately, his pudgy fingers probably bruising Dean’s neck from how hard he’s grasping it. Dean barely feels it over the sheer relief of being able to squeeze his son to his own chest, and bury his nose into the dark blond fuzz on his head. 

Jimmy is still crying, though less loudly, squirming and grabbing at him as he obviously can’t control his emotions enough to calm down. It’s instinct when suddenly Dean isn’t only offering reassurances with his words and body anymore. He can feel his soul extend until it’s holding his son too. Only this seems to finally appease Jimmy, little tendrils of his soul grabbing onto Dean’s in search for comfort, as the baby sniffs against his neck. 

The noise of someone trying to open the basement door startles Dean out of this surreal state. 

“I can get us out of here,” the angel - Tamiel, Dean remembers suddenly - says. “You need to put down the fire,” he urges, indicating the line of holy fire still burning all around them. He extends his arms to take Jimmy back, but Dean can’t detach the kid from his neck despite his struggling, the baby starting to cry again as soon as he even _ thinks _ about doing it. 

Dean struggles to try and put out the fire by tapping his feet on it while staying as far away as possible so Jimmy doesn’t get burned. Above them, someone is trying to force the door. So much for discretion, Dean thinks as he hears more footsteps approaching. 

“Is there a way out of here?” he asks urgently, grimacing as he can feel the fire burn the skin of his ankle. 

“I can’t get us out of the wards, but I can get us outside of the house,” Tamiel says. 

He grabs Dean the second the line of holy fire is broken and there are suddenly in the garden, at the very edge of the wards line. Dean squeezes Jimmy harder against his front and starts to run. He falls right back on his ass in a scream of rage when he bounces back against an invisible wall. 

Jimmy can’t pass the wards. 

How did he not think about this?

He turns around when he hears people shouting and sees half a dozen people running out of the house. He pulls Tamiel’s arm so that they duck behind a bush. The property is about half a acre and they haven’t been noticed yet, but they’re sitting ducks there. 

Jimmy whimpers against him, and Dean shushes him, rubbing his back. He can't strat cry ing . Not right now. 

“What do we do?” Tamiel asks, eyes wide. 

“I don’t know.”

“I...I could hold them off, win you some time, but neither I nor Jimmy are going anywhere as long as those wards are up.”

Dean swears when he reaches for his phone and it isn’t there anymore. It must have fallen out of his back pocket at some point. Jimmy whimpers again, pulling nervously on Dean’s jacket as the hunter bounces him slightly. 

They’re so damn close. Just a few steps and he could have called Cas. They would have been out of here. Now his prayers will be blocked by those damn wards, just like Tamiel has been blocked from angel radio and Jimmy from him. Except...not entirely. Jimmy’s soul did reach for him when Dean was in nothingness. After the bond, Dean could feel it call to him continuously, just as much as he’s feeling it hanging on his own soul right now for reassurance. Souls aren’t blocked by the wards, only Grace.

Dean gets the angel blade and a gun from the back of his pants, giving them to Tamiel. 

“Don’t let anyone come close to Jimmy,” he orders. 

“What? Where are you going?” Tamiel asks, a long curl of his dark hair flies around his head as he turns back to Dean in alarm. Dean is sliding so his back rests against the trunk of the tree just to the side of the bush they’re hiding behind. He lifts up Jimmy just long enough to sit him straddling Dean’s thighs, the boy whining in protest and immediately burying back into the hunter’s chest. 

“ _ Nowhere _ ,” Dean responds, looking uncertain but resolute as he closes his eyes. 

He takes a deep breath, squeezes his son harder against him and reaches with all his might for Castiel. 

*******************

Dean’s soul is in a motel room. Jimmy is on the bed. This is the first time Dean has met him. Dean’s soul can see his doppelganger as it observes the baby like it’s gonna jump out and eat his face. 

_ Nervousness. Anxiety.  _

Wait, that’s not right, Dean’s soul realizes. Castiel wasn’t there that day, yet Dean’s soul is seeing through his eyes right now. How is that possible? 

_ Jimmy reaches toward them _ . Dean can remember Jimmy pointing at the empty wall like that. 

Cas was here. 

Dean’s soul looks around but the Wave isn’t here. This is Cas’ memory, Cas’ mind, yet Cas isn’t here right now. 

_ Jimmy starts to cry as Sam splashes his face with holy water.  _

_ Annoyance. The instinct to protect. Curiosity _ . 

_ Dean takes the silver coin for his brother’s hand, putting it gently on the baby’s arm.  _

_ “Okay, Sam, this baby is really strong.  _ Really _ strong.” _

_ Worry. Cas wants to intervene. What if they hurt Jimmy. Scared. Reticent. Not yet. _

_ Jimmy falls off the bed and starts crying.  _

_ Annoyed. Pissed off. Cas walks toward his son, but Jimmy is grabbed by Dean before he can take him. The hunter puts the child against his chest, tutting and bouncing him a little in his arms. Jimmy snuggles against him and calms down.  _

The emotions that provokes are suddenly so strong, too much. Dean’s soul curls up, overwhelmed by the mix of desire and sadness. 

Why was he here again?

_ “Tagadaga!” _

Jimmy.

The wards. 

Dean’s soul gets agitated, flying every which way. This is not where he’s supposed to be. He needs to get out. He hits it so hard that the wall around the memory breaks. He’s suddenly into nothingness again. But no. Something is wrong. The Wave isn’t here to anchor him. He’s motionless _ ,  _ directionless as he floats in the dark. He tries to reach for something, anything, but nothing is around, nothing  _ exists _ anymore _.  _

_ Humans can’t fly.  _

There is no breach anymore, Cas’ mind isn’t there with him. No one is. He’s alone. He tries to go back to his body, he has to protect Jimmy, he has to find a way to save him. He panics when he realizes he has no idea where his body is anymore. 

He’s lost. 

  
  


****************

Castiel is pacing in front of the line of wards.

About half an hour ago, he was in the Bunker’s map room when he fell down, clutching his head in pain as a sudden sense of urgency and fear invaded it. 

_ Dean’s. _

He was here the next second, flying all along the edge of the propriety that was warded. Dean and Jimmy were nowhere in sight. Castiel only panicked more when he noticed half a dozen fallen angels scouring every bushes and hidden spots in the garden. He tried to rationalize that if they were searching that means that they didn’t have them, but it was probably just a matter of time. Castiel needed to get inside, he needed to  _ help _ . 

All of a sudden, all of the rules of Heaven and Hell couldn’t have stopped him from coming to get his son. 

He flaught back to the bunker. At the worries on his face, Sam was immediately up. 

“Let’s go,” the hunter declares, grabbing the sheets of paper he’d been taking annotations on. 

Castiel was surprised to find Rarier, Sachiel and Arariel coming to his side too, ready to take flight with an air of determination on their faces. 

“What are you doing?” Naomi asks, coming into the room, alerted by the commotion. 

Cas didn’t answer, grabbing Sam and flying. 

Naomi followed them only a couple of minutes later, surrounded by a whole garrison. 

“Naomi I-” Cas started to protest, ready to fight if he needed to. 

“What’s the plan?” she asked, dedicated. 

Castiel inhaled in relief. 

They have been here for twenty minutes now when a gunshot resonates and makes Cas’ blood run cold. 

“Sam! Hurry up!” 

The hunter doesn’t hear him, focusing on scratching symbols out with a knife and deactivating their magic with incantations. The line won’t break until all the wards are gone, but the perimeter they encompass is so large that Sam has been running from symbol to symbol for close to twenty minutes already. He’s the only one that can do it, the only human they know that knows how. Cas knows it’s unfair to scream at him when he can see the hunter itches to run inside and help his brother. Arariel has come to help him, spotting each scribble and zapping Sam to the next one as soon as he’s finished with the current one. 

It’s still taking too long. 

Cas is stamping his feet with the need to run. Dean and Jimmy are probably just a few yards away and yet he can’t see them, can’t reach them, can’t  _ help _ them. Naomi lays a calming hand on his shoulder and he looks back at her. Her eyes, too, are full of worry as she stares into the direction multiple shots are now coming from. She’s been a good friend to him this last year. She’s given her full loyalty to Castiel and New Heaven. To Jimmy, whom she has grown fond of too. 

Castiel startles when someone walks out of the house, rage bubbling inside when he notices it’s Bartholomew. The other angel walks the length of the porch to rest at the top of the few steps leading to it. He looks straight at them, seeming calm despite being surrounded and the gunshot still ringing close. He smirks right at Cas. 

“Bartholomew’s vessel is no longer alive,” Naomi declares, her own eyes squinting in anger in the direction of their opposant. 

“ _ Good _ ,” Castiel confirms through gritted teeth. 

Right now, he itches to write that smile off with his own blade. He didn’t come here seeking violence, he just wanted to get his friend and son back. Looking at Bartholomew standing about fifty yards away and taunting him like he is, Cas realizes that there is no easy way out of this. Bartholomew won’t relent, it’s clear in his eyes. The angel Castiel still thought was his friend a mere month ago is now an enemy. He’s always been one, Cas just didn’t realize it until it was too late. He’ll be dealt with the way he deserves for daring to touch Castiel’s son. 

“You know why he’s smiling. He’s expecting us to strike, Castiel. If we kill any human today-” Naomi reminds him. 

“We won’t,” Cas interrupts, looking to his left where Rariel and Sachiel are standing. They both nod at him. They know their orders. As soon as the wards are down, the angels will fly every fallen angel right to the Bunker’s dungeon. They need to act fast enough that the humans won’t have time to react, take them by surprise for everyone’s safety. 

All of a sudden, Sachiel takes a step forward in alertness, only stopped by the barrier as Tamiel appears between them and the porch Bartholomew is standing on. Their friend looks exhausted, head dropping as two angels hold him up between them. His clothes are tattered and covered in blood. 

“Tamiel,” Sachiel mutters. Castiel knows how close the two angels are. They’ve been in the same garrison for eons and the closest thing angels could be to friends. 

“Is that what you came for, Castiel?” Bartholomew asks, loud enough to be heard from where they stand, as he slowly descends the steps of the porch toward Tamiel. “ _ This _ is no angel,” he says, lips curling as he grabs Tamiel’s cheeks in one hand to look at him, before pushing him away in disgust. 

Bartholomew walks around the angel, coming a few steps closer. He’s still at least forty yards from them, but Castiel can perfectly see the cunning grin on his face before he raises his hands in an innocent gesture. This is all an act and, contrary to what Bartholomew is pretending, Castiel is not the target audience. He wants angels and fallen angels to watch as Cas is left powerless by his own beliefs.

“I gave you a choice, Castiel. I asked for peace, and yet you send enemies to my doorstep.  _ Spies, _ ” he hisses, turning around to grab Tamiel and pushing him to the ground in front of him. “You would rather save humans than your own brethren.”

“I would rather save  _ everyone _ ,” Castiel howls back. He knows what is going to happen. He can see the murderous glint in Bartholomew’s eyes even before the blade appears in his hand. 

“You’re a disgrace to your race. A sickness that is invading the mind of the Host. Look at them!,” Bartholomew screams, indicating the dozen angels standing by Cas’ side. “Parading around in ridiculous clothes like they’re  _ humans,”  _ he says, spitting the last word _. “ _ I’ll give you a last chance, brother. Let me and all our brethren-” he says, spreading his arms to designate the dozen fallen angels and couple angels surrounding him. “-come back to Heaven. Let us have peace. Let me keep the human and the bastard, let me purge that blasphemy to our Father’s name. I’ll release Tamiel right now,” he announces, putting a hand in Tamiel’s hair and pulling until the angel is on his knees in front of Bartholomew. “Prove to us that we matter more to you than those  _ cockroaches. _ ”

Cas glares in response, raging. He can feel all the eyes of his brethren waiting on his answer, but he won’t give Bartholomew the satisfaction of giving one. There is no negotiation possible and they both know it. No matter what Castiel does or says, innocent people are going to die today, angels and humans alike. 

“Well, you’ve made your choice,” the other angel declares, tilting his head, “try and save your precious humans now,” he concludes with a smirk, bringing the blade to Tamiel’s throat. 

“NO!” Sachiel yells beside Castiel. 

A scream answers him along with the blinding light of an angel dying and Castiel looks away, refusing to see another one of his friends die. 

“Humans can save themselves, asshole.”

Castiel looks back in shock at the sound of the familiar voice. He blinks in disbelief when he sees Dean standing right behind where Bartholomew just was, the body of the angel crumbled at his feet, surrounded by the shadow of giant black wings. Dean looks pale, blood dripping along his face from a wound on his forehead. He’s holding Castiel’s son against his chest with one hand while he grips a bloody angel blade in the other one. 

For a few seconds, nobody moves, taking in what just happened. A movement behind Dean catches Cas’ eyes, a fallen angel running right to the hunter with a knife. Castiel opens his mouth to scream a warning just as a rush of power electrifies the air as the wards finally break. 

Castiel doesn’t waste a second. He _ flies. _

His arms encircle Dean’s body from behind, shielding him just as the blade was about to hit the hunter, landing between the angel's ribs instead. 

Castiel screams. 

  
  



	6. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel kinda sad to say goodbye to this story, but here is the last chapter, as well as the epilogue. 
> 
> I really liked writing this story, even though that was not what I had planned at all when I started writing it. I hope you still enjoyed reading it
> 
> WARNING: There is again a mention of dubcon, see the notes at the end for more details on that.

_ You're a rhapsody, a comedy _

_ You're a symphony and a play _

_ You're every love song ever written _

_ But honey what do you see in me _

_ ********* _

Dean is lying on his bed, a hand resting reassuringly on his son’s chest as the baby lay asleep beside him. 

Jimmy was so exhausted that it took him a long time to fall asleep, to calm down enough and stop screaming to release the emotional turmoil he just lived through. 

They don’t know how much Jimmy actually understands of what happened, but from the way his soul is clutching Dean’s, he’s at least suffered from the absence of his dads those past few days. He can’t reach Castiel’s Grace anymore, and Jimmy seems to feel this frustration too. 

Even in his sleep, one of his hands is still clutching his father’s trench coat, his little nose buried inside it.

Dean takes his hand off the baby for a second to scratch his cheek and Jimmy stirs, whining, so the hunter immediately puts his hand back. 

“Shhh, it’s okay. I’m here,” Dean whispers, sliding a little closer to the baby until he can feel his warmth brushing against his chest. 

Dean looks up, blushing a little when he notices how much closer it brought him to Castiel too. The angel is lying on the other side of the baby, one arm above the baby’s head as he gently brushes the kid's hair with two fingers. 

“How much longer do you think we’ll have to do the whole leech act?” 

Jimmy has clutched at both of them ever since they got him back, screaming if one of them dared to step away. He obviously needs to be reassured by their presence, so they’ve stayed close ever since they came back to the bunker, a bunch of hours ago. 

Dean knows he should sleep too, he hasn’t had more than a nap for more than three days now, but he can’t take his eyes off his son. He’s probably squeezing Jimmy’s soul just as much as Jimmy is squeezing his right now. 

“I don’t know,” Castiel confesses, looking at his son like he doesn’t care if he has to stay by his side for the rest of his life. “At least until we can get the collar off,” he adds, sending a reproachful look to the metal band still glowing around Jimmy’s delicate neck. “He’s never been cut off from my Grace before. Being unable to reach either of us, I can’t even imagine…” Cas says, voice strangled by the pain of imagining how scared his little boy must have been. 

Dean can’t help but think back on his own fear when he heard Castiel scream as a fallen angel put a blade through him. Thankfully, it was only a human blade, it didn’t do much more than surprise Cas. Yet Dean can’t quite shake the panic he felt at the idea of losing Cas. If it had been an angel blade…

He can’t think about that, thought. He can still feel Cas and Jimmy’s restlessness, he can’t add his to the turmoil of emotions around them, so he pushes back his own distress away and reaches for the angel. 

“Hey, it’s okay, Cas. He’s safe now,” Dean reassures, sliding his free hand from under his head to depose it on Cas’, over their son’s hair. He can feel his soul reaching out too, brushing along Cas’ Grace in reassurance. The angel seems to immediately relax. 

“You’re not supposed to be able to do that,” Cas notes, intrigued as he pokes back with his Grace. “Earlier, when you called me. It should not be possible, Dean. A soul doesn’t work like Grace can, it can’t have any control outside of your own body.”

Dean shrugs. “It didn’t have a lot of control,” he admits sheepishly. “For a moment there, I thought I was lost. That I would never be able to get back to my body, to protect Jimmy…”

This time it’s Cas’ hand that squeezes his, Cas’ Grace that encircles him until the wave of calm makes Dean sigh in relief. The angel looks worried though, brows furrowed as he observes Dean’s face. 

“How did you do it?”

“I didn’t,” Dean answers, making Cas’ frown deeper. “This little guy came to get me,” he says with a smile, passing a light finger on the baby’s cheek. Jimmy grimaces a little, but doesn’t stir, suckling reflexively on his own tongue as he sleeps. 

“He shouldn’t have been able to do that either,” Cas reflects as he looks down at his child. 

“Guess we’re in for a shitload of surprises when it comes to this one,” Dean scoffs affectionately. 

“We?” Cas asks, a little timid. 

“Of course, Cas,” Dean promises, earnest. “I mean...It’s scary as fuck, especially with the powers and leeching thing,” he admits, bringing one of his hand back under his head to raise up on his elbow. “But I’m all in for that kid,” he concludes, looking at his thumb caressing the baby’s stomach in a soothing circle. 

Cas doesn’t say anything for a while. Dean can feel his eyes on him, but he doesn’t look up, fascinated by the sight of his son in front of him. 

_ His son. _

Damn, those last two weeks have been  _ wild.  _

“I’m going to need you to teach me how to do this, Cas, because I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing here,” he confesses, chest clenching against a little panic everytimes he thinks about the future. How is this even supposed to work? He doesn’t know how to take care of a kid, let alone a nephilim. 

“You’ve been doing a pretty good job so far,” Cas says with a small smile. 

“Really?” Dean asks, grimacing in uncertainty as he looks up at the angel. “Because so far it’s just felt like Jimmy throwing himself at me while I’m barely fast enough to catch him. Both figuratively and literally.”

Cas chuckles a little. “That’s how I’ve been feeling for eleven months. I think that’s just how parenting is. Minus the actual flying, maybe.”

_ “Damn.” _

Dean tenses up at an insistent tugging on his soul. 

“Oh no, there we go again,” he says, making Cas frown in incomprehension just before Jimmy starts to scream again. 

  
  


************

The next few days, nothing really calms down. The bunker’s dungeon is full of fallen humans that they managed to capture and aren’t sure what to do with yet. Sam and Arariel are still working on Jimmy’s collar. The nephilim is still very frustrated that he can’t feel his dad’s Grace anymore. It’s making him very needy, grumpy and quite fussy. 

Worse of all, Castiel can feel Dean retreat more and more from him and he doesn’t understand  _ why. _

Everything has seemed to be going great between them since the night they got Jimmy back. Dean even promised he would be there for his son. Castiel felt like they shared a moment. Yet even though Dean is very patient with Jimmy, taking care of him everytime Cas needs some time to deal with the angels’ situation, the hunter seems to disappear every time Cas is back by his son’s side. 

Castiel keeps replaying their last moment together, trying to catch what he could have done wrong and finding nothing. He thinks back on every word and every move and every looks they shared in that moment and before. He had hoped that things between him and Dean would be okay, that all the tensions coming from their past were forgotten and that they would do this together. Except his mind is stuck on three words that he barely noticed at the time. 

Dean said ‘I’m all in for the kid.’

Not just “I’m all in” or “I’m all in with you.” Castiel realizes bleakly. He had naïvely thought that it meant that they would be a family. A couple raising their kids. But as even Dean’s soul seems to retrieve more and more from him, Cas realizes that he may have misunderstood. 

Dean promised he was going to be there for Jimmy. He never said anything about Castiel. 

Could Castiel be wrong about this? Could his own anxiety and past with Dean make him misinterpret things?

Days pass, Cas trying to focus on the fallen angels situation rather than his personal problems, trying to ignore his heart breaking after having just managed to build up the strength to hold on again. Yet if he can squeeze his fist and keep his hand from reaching for Dean like they want to every time they’re close, he can’t quite stop his Grace from trying to reach for Dean’s soul. His heart cracks a little more everytimes Dean’s soul seems to pull away. 

When they finally manage to take off Jimmy’s collar, the kid’s Grace immediately leeches on Cas so strongly that it makes him physically stagger. He wonders if it had felt the same to Dean. 

They still don’t know how Dean’s soul can act like an angel Grace in the way it absorbs and emits feelings, or how he could possibly access Castiel’s consciousness like he did. Even when Castiel goes to Heaven, it feels like there is always a little part of Dean’s soul floating beside his Grace. He would have rejoiced at the feeling of always having Dean by his side if it wasn’t a constant reminder of Dean’s physical distance, if the little bit of soul didn’t seem to flinch every time he got too close to it now. 

Jimmy’s taking his place back by his Grace makes him feel better, even if the constant poking and squeezing of his son’s Grace can feel exhausting, especially coupled with the actual physical poking and squeezing of his son’s body.

Jimmy still gets really anxious if he isn’t physically close to one of his parents. He also screams every time he sees Tamiel, which seems to break the heart of the angel who cared for him to the best of his abilities while they were both Bartholomew’s prisoners. 

Tamiel told them how he had to beg his jailors for them to bring food and water to Jimmy. Thankfully a few fallen angels had taken pity on the crying child, and would sneak in bottles for him. Jimmy didn’t need to eat as much as human children, but he had always taken comfort in the regularity of meals and Cas has always built their days’ schedule around it. 

There was no night or day in Heaven, no weather or seasons, yet Castiel made sure to build a little niche inside it to make Jimmy familiar with the human ways. He took over a little slice of New Heaven and made it into a house where Jimmy had his own bedroom and could play in the garden. It had always been important to Cas that Jimmy embraced his human side. 

He was criticized a lot for it by some angels that, despite tolerating Jimmy, thought Castiel should make him fully embrace his angel side instead. Bartholomew has always seemed to support Castiel though. He would even bring human toys to the baby. The fact that he would voluntarily deny Jimmy’s human side by denying him food felt as much a betrayal to Cas as the kidnapping was. Until Tamiel told him about it, he still held hope that some of Bartholomew’s affection for Jimmy had been sincere. Castiel hated the fact that he let someone so hateful hold his child in his arms. That he trusted him, and didn’t see through his ruse. 

When Tamiel related how he had exhausted Bartholomew’s crew by flying himself from one place to another to keep them away from Dean and Jimmy while the hunter was incapacited, Cas rewards him with a pick at his own garrison. He isn’t surprised when Tamiel requests Sachiel as his second, and Castiel is only too happy to agree. He knows he will always have at least one garrison he can count entirely on. 

After a long debate, they decide to release the fallen angels after they find them empty vessels. Many protested this idea, wishing for the death of those who tried to hurt the Nephilim they hold as their prince, but Castiel and Naomi both agreed that hate could only give rise to hate. The fallen angels were so surprised by their mercy that some swear their loyalty in return. Castiel isn’t naive enough to grant them access to Heaven or their Grace as of yet, but he promised them safe passage once they have lived through a human span of life. He hopes that living among humans will teach them to value them as equals. If not, a few decades living as someone that they despise should be sufficient punishment. They demote the few angels that have betrayed New Heaven with the same sentence, as an example. 

Soon comes the time for every angel to leave the bunker and go back to New Heaven. Castiel is left in uncertainty regarding him and Jimmy. Since Dean has been avoiding him, they didn’t get a chance to talk about the future. Both Winchesters have made the fact that they were welcome to stay clear, but Castiel isn’t sure about what he wants, and what would be best for Jimmy. Though he would never take Jimmy away from Dean again, he can’t see himself living in the Bunker when the man he desires so much still feels so unreachable. 

He stalls talking about the situation when Arariel asks to stay behind to continue to study the Men of Letters’ library with Sam. It’s the perfect excuse to pretend to want to help her, even though Cas can feel a tension between her and Sam that sometimes makes him feel like an intruder while they work. 

This feeling of unease is particularly present right now as the woman and the hunter keep sending each other coy looks above their books. When Arariel giggles, Cas both feels victorious that his angels really do seem to embrace their human instincts and feelings like he’s encouraging them to, and ill-at-ease as he’s clearly the fifth wheel of a carriage on the road to flirt town. 

He discreetly rolls his eyes and pretends he has to check on his son, leaving the two suitors to their courting. 

Jimmy is napping soundly, finally starting to feel appeased enough to sleep in his own bed rather than in one of his parents’ arms. 

Castiel can’t help but throw a look into Dean’s room when he passes by and sees the door slightly ajar. The hunter seems to be napping, which isn’t surprising, as he had spent the last week with a needy baby interrupting his nights, and constantly tugging on his soul (and nose, and hair, and clothes, and pretty much anything Jimmy’s little hands could reach). 

Cas never thought that Dean could be so patient. While he did complain out loud by using far too many swear words that weren’t appropriate to the presence of a little kid, he never rejected Jimmy in any way, and took the task of taking care of the baby while Castiel was busy dealing with angel affairs. 

Cas has no doubt that he could fully trust the hunter when it comes to parenting. Dean seems to have all the right instincts. He’s certainly better at soothing Jimmy that Cas used to be after his son was born. 

Despite reading way too many books on parenting and visiting the Heaven of many childcare professionals to seek advice, parenting didn’t seem to be a natural instinct for angels and Cas fumbled for months before he finally eased into his role as Jimmy’s dad enough to be able to trust his own ways. 

Dean has taken to parenting so smoothly that it made the angel a little envious at times. Though Cas has always made sure his brethren cared for Jimmy too, both to help Castiel and to socialize his son, it’s not easy to learn how to share his son with another parent. He’s happy that Dean is here for his son and that their relationship seems to be going well, but those times when Jimmy turned to Dean instead of him for comfort always pinches his heart in an uncomfortable way. 

Cas is stepping back from Dean’s bedroom’s door when a wave of anguish suddenly invades him. The feeling is not his own and he looks toward the bed in worries. The hunter’s brows are furrowed, his head minutely shaking as he’s mouthing silent words of what appears to be protest. His soul is screaming, and Cas can’t help but caress it with his Grace in an effort to calm it. For the first time in days, the soul grabs back at him instead of flinching away. Encouraged by it, Cas advances toward the bed. 

Dean has always hated it when he wakes up to find Cas watching him, yet the angel has spent many nights through the years, silently pushing the nightmares away from the hunter’s mind. 

It’s a familiar instinct that makes his fingers brush against the human’s forehead. Cas isn’t expecting it when Dean’s soul suddenly grabs him so hard that he’s sucked in. 

************

Castiel is standing in a familiar motel bedroom. It’s not hard to identify the memory as the night they unknowingly conceived Jimmy. Something is different though. A dark veil seems to be covering everything and clogging the air. It’s so unsettling that it takes Cas a moment to realize that those are Dean’s emotions. 

It breaks Castiel’s heart and makes him want to run away. He knew Dean didn’t like the memory of that night, the way his soul thrashed the last time they visited it, as well as his refusal to talk about it were clear enough. Yet Castiel has no idea how much he  _ hated _ it. The air here is permeated by disgust and resentment and anger. It makes Castiel feel sick. 

He’s on the verge of flying away, to escape, when the sound of a sob stops him. 

He forces himself to look around. A few feet in front of him, Dean and himself are lying in the bed. He can see the covers move with what he knows is happening under it, but he can’t bring himself to look at it for long. Instead, he notices Dean. Another Dean.  _ His _ Dean, curled up in the corner of the room, head buried in his knees. 

As it is a dream and not a memory, Dean appears as a full body, a character invading a scene his mind has created. Castiel gets closer. He, too, possesses a body here, as he does in every of Dean’s dreams. 

“Dean,” he calls softly as he steps in front of the curled up man. When Dean doesn’t answer, Cas crutches down hesitantly. Despite Dean having brought Castiel here himself, the angel is reticent, worried that the hunter will take his presence here as an intrusion. He always did in the past. 

Faced with his friend’s anguish, Cas can’t bring himself to do nothing either. He reaches out and brushes his fingers against the hunter’s knee. Green eyes raise toward him, red and blotched with tears that Dean rarely allows in the real world. 

“Cas?”

Dean looks around, as if realizing where they are. 

“Are you dreamwalking inside my head again?” he asks, raising up to his feet and wiping his face with his sleeves. Panic and shame invades the air. 

“I’m sorry, Dean. You called me,” Cas says, scared that he may have just compromised his relationship with the other man even more. 

Dean looks at him with wide eyes, devoid of the anger that Castiel was scared of seeing. He throws a panic look toward the bed behind the angel, from where the sounds of heavy breaths are now resonating. 

“You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t have to live through this again.”

“Live through-,” Cas says, confused. The wave of shame that passes over him is so powerful it makes him want to vomit. “That’s how you feel about this?” he can’t help but ask, throat tight. “Shame? Disgust?”

“Of course, Cas! I’ll never be sorry enough about what happened that night,” Dean says, eyes on the ground, emanating self-hate. 

“Our son happened that night, Dean. How can you hate it that much?” 

His own anger and rejection is suddenly floating around them, making the air even more heavy. 

“I love Jimmy, Cas. Never doubt that,” Dean says, firm. “I just hate-”

“Me,” Castiel realizes, taking a step back. It’s so clear in the way hate is flowing around the bed where their past selves are still intertwined. “I can’t stay here,” he mutters. 

A hand on his arm stops him just as he’s about to go, Dean’s whole soul encircling him and squeezing so hard that he can’t move. 

“No!” Dean protests. “I don’t hate you, Cas. I hate _ this _ ,” he says, turning Cas toward the bed where the sheets are moving. They can only see the back of their heads above the covers, Dean’s lips on the bend of Cas’ shoulder. “I hate everything about this,” Dean says in disgust, detourning his eyes from it. 

“Us.”

“No. Look at it, Cas!” Dean insists. “ _ Feel _ it.”

Cas gasps at the wave of emotions. It’s not Dean’s feelings anymore. Not his Dean, but the Dean of the past, the Dean latching his teeth on Cas’ neck and sucking a dark mark into his skin. 

_ Mine.  _

“Wha-” Cas frowns. 

_ Possession. Desperation. Jealousy.  _

_ Must make him mine. Can’t let him go. Can’t let him leave me. _

_ Anger. At everything else, everything that is keeping them away from each other, including Dean himself. I’m losing him.  _

_ Closer. Must get closer.  _

There is no passion, no love, Cas realizes. Coming from Dean, this was an act of possession, of anger, of regrets. 

_ Castiel groans in discomfort as a second finger breaches him, too dry and too sudden.  _

Cas turns back when he hears Dean whimpers behind him. 

“What I did to you, Cas,” Dean says, eyes on the ground. “How can you even bear to be near me, how can you even allow me to see Jimmy when I...I…”

The word Dean can’t say is there, all around them and it’s _ wrong _ . 

“That’s not how it was, Dean,” Cas denies, shocked. 

“It was. I never realized it before, but I could feel it in your memory. How I hurt you, how you only let me do this because you thought that would make me stay with you. And I still left you, Cas. I used you for my own comfort, for my own-”

“No,” Castiel affirms. “ _ Feel _ .”

The room shifts again, like a one eighty of wind and emotions as they rush to Cas’ side of things. 

_ It hurts yes. It’s raw and needy and too fast. Yet Cas has never felt more wanted. It’s fulfilling in every way to feel wanted by Dean. It’s everything Castiel has ever needed. It’s bliss.  _

“I wanted you too, Dean,” Cas says. “I’ve always wanted you.”

“But you thought it would make me stay,” Dean says, shaking his head. 

“I did. Of course, I did. I had hoped you would come and take me away every single day I was human. What you did after hurt me, but _ this _ . This is a precious memory to me Dean. You wanting me isn’t wrong. Us conceiving Jimmy can never be wrong,” Cas says, stepping closer to Dean as the hunter isn’t quite meeting his eyes, isn’t quite convinced. “Knowing that you wanted me to be yours…” Cas gulps, placing a hand over the place where Dean’s heart is beating too fast. “That’s all I’ve ever wished for, Dean.” Despite the angel’s insistent gaze, Dean’s eyes stay resolutely away from him, jaw locked. “I wish you wouldn’t hate yourself for wanting me.”

When Dean still doesn’t react, the negative emotions floating around become too much and Castiel gets out. He blinks back into Dean’s bedroom. 

The hunter is still asleep, still looking as perturbed as before. Cas knows he can’t help him anymore and he raises up from where he sat on the bed. 

At least, he got his answer. His place isn’t here. 

He’s nearly at the door when a hand grabs his arm. 

“Wait,” Dean pleads. He puts himself in front of Cas, barring the door. His eyes still look blurry with sleep, hair all over the place and pillow crease on his cheeks. “I don’t hate you, Cas,” Dean says, voice still hoarse with sleep. “The only thing I’ve ever hated about you is how much...how much I want you.”

Cas shakes his head. “We’ve already established that, Dean. And I shouldn’t have to carry your resentment over this,” he says, resigned but determined. He’s been hurt too many times when all he ever did was to want Dean back. He tries to step around him, but Dean takes a step to the side, blocking him again. 

“No, you don’t understand,” Dean says, seeming frustrated. “I’ve never wanted anything more than I want you, than I  _ need  _ you and that’s...that’s terrifying, Cas,” Dean confesses. That makes Cas tilt his head, observing him as he tries to understand what the hunter is trying to say. “What if I screw up? What if I hurt you and you leave again?”

Castiel raises an eyebrow in answer, looking down briefly to where Dean is still gripping his arm. They both know Dean couldn’t stop Castiel if he really wanted to leave. 

“Exactly!” Dean exclaims, making the angel even more confused. “I keep screwing up with you, Cas. But I can’t screw up. Not this time. Not when I could lose Jimmy too,” he adds, biting the inside of his cheek. 

“I would never take him away from you, Dean,” Cas swears, shocked at the idea. 

“But you did,” Dean reminds him. “Sure, I didn’t know about it, but I was an asshole and your first instinct was to keep him away from me.” Cas opens his mouth to protest, to defend, but Dean goes on. “I don’t know how to not be an asshole, Cas,” he admits, voice breaking as he stares at the tip of Castiel’s tie. “Every time I try, I end up screwing up and pushing you farther away.”

Cas looks at him for a long time. This infuriating man that keeps hurting him, and that he can’t bring himself to hate. They share a bond deeper than anyone before them, and yet he still confuses Castiel so damn much.

“Maybe you could just try...to not push me away?” Cas says, scrunching his nose as he reflects. That makes Dean look up at him in confusion. Good, Cas shouldn’t be the only one confused. “That would be a good start,” he adds with a shrug. 

“I’m not sure how to do that,” Dean admits. 

Cas reaches with his Grace hesitantly, brushing against Dean’s soul, inviting him to get closer. The soul shies away and Castiel sighs. He wants to leave, to run away from the hurt and rejection. It has never solved anything before though. It has never stopped it from hurting, it just made Dean’s absence sharper. Cas takes a deep breath, gathers his Grace and sends it bumping straight into Dean’s soul. 

Dean physically startles, looking up at him in askance, obviously feeling it. Cas does it again, and again. Suddenly the fear emanating from Dean’s soul turns into incomprehension. Cas doesn’t relent as they continue to gaze at each other. Until finally, Dean understands, a coy smile raising at the corner of his lips. The effect is practically instant and his soul opens up just as Cas was going to hit it again. Cas’ Grace is engulfed in it, surrounded and hugged. Cas smiles back. He wriggles his Grace until suddenly they’re going around and around each other, intertwining in a helix as they dance around each other. It’s fulfilling and makes him swell with an elation he’s never felt before. 

“Like this?” Dean asks, grinning despite the slight hesitation still shining in his eyes. 

“For a start,” Castiel says. He closes his eyes to enjoy the sensation. The energy of Dean’s soul has always been his solace and to feel it so close, to have Dean share it so openly with him is enivrant. He feels like his Grace will explode in rapture when he suddenly feels Dean’s lips on his. The electricity of it makes them both shudder. 

Castiel feels drunk with the sensation. Dean is everywhere, body and soul. His arms around his shoulder feel just as good as his Soul around his Grace. His tongue is caressing Cas’ in the same cadence as their spiritual union, like waves licking the shore. 

Cas only realizes how hard he is when Dean’s hand closes around his length over his pants. 

“You do seem to like it a lot,” the human teases. 

“Don’t you?” Cas asks, opening his eyes to look at the hunter. 

“Oh, I do,” Dean says, swaying a little forward until the front of his tented pants brush against Cas’, making them both shiver in need. Their waves stumble in their dance around each other, bumping until they crash back into a heap. They can both feel how entirely tangled they are. They feel like one and the same. It’s dizzying. 

“Can you promise you’ll stay if I promise I’ll try not to push?”

“I’m not sure I can ever leave, Dean,” Castiel says with a smirk as his Grace wriggles happily, settling around and under the ethereal weight of Dean’s soul. He noses under the hunter’s jaw, as Dean wraps his arms around him. 

“Good. I never want you to,” Dean confides. He sighs, chest brushing against the angel’s, and Cas savores the feeling. Dean’s own devotion is overwhelming. With Dean’s soul as well as his body wraps around him, Cas feels more complete than he ever did before. Settled and at peace. Finally. Bliss. 

“Galabagada!”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what are your thoughts on this chapter? Are you satisfied with the way everything was resolved? TELL ME EVERYTHING. 
> 
> WARNING: Mention of dubcon and noncon elements. SPOILER: Dean is convinced the sex they had was non-consensual, Cas reassures him that it wasn't. There is only one sentence that could be considered as graphic or explicit, the rest is implied.


	7. Happiness is a mess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could not end this chapter without a good dose of Jimmy's cuteness. So here is a epilogue full of destiel, disaster child, fluff, and cute family feels. Enjoy!
> 
> Art by me (if you can call it that)

_You're in my heart, you're in my soul_

_You'll be my breath should I grow old_

_You are my lover, you're my best friend_

_You're in my soul_

  
  


**************

“I thought angels didn’t eat. How come a nephilim can poop this much,” Dean asks, grimacing as he slides the dirty diaper from under his son’s ass. 

“Oh, that aspect of him unequivocally comes from you,” Castiel answers, holding the garbage bin as Dean makes a show of disposing of the offending item. “Now wipe his ass,” Cas says, extending a package of wipes with a mocking smirk. 

Dean grumbles as he turns back to the baby lying on the changing table. 

“Yulalba!” Jimmy squeals in laughter as he starts peeing right up on his dad’s shirt. 

“Oh come on!”

Cas doesn’t know if he should tell Dean that he was lucky it was _only_ pee. 

************

“He puked on my burger, Sam. _On my burger!_ ”

  
  


************

“Huh, hey, Cas, have you ever heard the expression ‘swallow a bullet’? Because I have a funny story to tell you. It, huh, it involves Jimmy…”

  
  


************

When Cas comes back from having dealt with what Dean calls ‘Angel Business’ that day, he’s surprised to find Jimmy’s crib, along with all his personal belongings in the middle of the corridor. Panic seizes him for an instant. Has Dean decided that he doesn’t want Jimmy and him to stay? Castiel thinks things have been going well. He has never, as a matter of fact, been happier than he is now. But what if it’s too much for Dean? Cas has just ‘officially’ moved into Dean’s room last week. Dean had made a fuss about all the ugly sweaters in his wardrobe, but he seemed okay with it. What if he’s changed his mind now?

“Dada wa!” Castiel hears Jimmy exclaims before bursting out laughing; followed by Dean’s chuckles. 

It’s a sound that Cas has been hearing more and more lately. Everyone seems to laugh more those days. Relief flood Castiel at the sound. Dean is happy too. Cas knows Dean is happy too. He can see it in his eyes every time he’s holding their son. He can feel it in the way Dean's Soul embraces his Grace every time they are with each other. He can taste it on Dean’s lips and on his skin, smell it in Dean’s hair while the hunter sleeps in his arms at night, and hear it in that fond laugh that he’s hearing right now. 

He shouldn’t have worried, shouldn’t have doubted Dean, even for a second. Yet after a decade of life trying to separate them, it’s still hard to trust the happiness they’ve finally found together. 

Reassured and curious, Castiel approaches his son’s bedroom. As soon as he enters, he can feel his son’s and Dean’s waves rushing to his side, bouncing happily around Cas’ Grace like a couple of excited puppies. 

Dean is holding Jimmy in a baby carrier on his front. He has a paint brush covered in green paint in one hand, wall half painted in front of him. On his chest, Jimmy is waving happily a much smaller paint brush. Despite the fact that Jimmy’s brush is devoid of paint (thank God), they’re still both covered in more paint that is probably advised. It doesn’t take Cas long to notice the small handprints on the freshly painted wall and to understand why his son looks like a tiny Hulk right now. He frowns his disapproval, but can’t retain a smile in front of Dean's sheepish look. 

“I admit it wasn’t the most thought-out plan,” Dean says, pouting. 

Cas rolls his eyes and goes to take Jimmy from the carrier, barely avoiding getting hit in the face with a tiny brush when the kid raises his arms eagerly toward him. The angel tries to wipe the paint off his son’s cheek with a thumb. It doesn’t come off. 

“I’ll take bath duty tonight,” Dean defends. They both know Cas could use Grace to clean Jimmy off, but Dean is still trying to make amends after the scolding he took from an angry angel daddy when Dean jokingly tried to show Jimmy how to clean out a gun and the baby swallowed a salt bullet whole. That was not a fun time. For anyone. “It looks nice, though, right?” the hunter tries to divert the attention. 

Cas looks at the room around him. There is only a half wall painted so far, but the color is really nice. 

“Where did you even find paint? I was gone for two hours,” Cas reflects. Moving everything out of the room would have taken at least an hour, especially while also taking care of Jimmy. There is no way Dean had time to go out to buy paint too. 

Surprisingly, Dean blushes at the question, turning back toward the wall with a shrug. “I just had it around,” he deflects, resuming painting the wall. 

“Please, tell me you’re not painting our son’s room with paint that you found in the basement.” Cas goes to check out the paint bucket. Does paint have an expiration date? Wasn’t there lead and dangerous chemicals in paint in the fifties?

“Of course, I’m not, Cas,” Dean groans. “You’ve got to stop it with the mother hen act,” the human reproaches, resolutely looking at the wall as Cas glares at the back of his head. They’ve had this discussion many times already. Dean thinks Cas is overprotective, Cas thinks Dean tends to be reckless with Jimmy’s safety. Again: their son swallowed a _bullet_. “I bought it like, two years ago.”

“What for?”

“What is this, an interrogation? Jeez,” Dean says, ears pinking. 

Now that’s definitely suspicious. Cas raises an eyebrow and waits. When Dean acts like this, Cas knows he shouldn’t push. Acting annoyed and being on the defensive over nothing is Dean’s way of being shy. He’s not an easy human to understand, but Cas is getting better and better at it. 

He focuses on showing Jimmy how to paint the other wall with his blank brush while Dean sends him quick sideway looks, looking agitated.

“There’s a-” Dean finally says, making Cas feel proud about knowing him that well,“There’s a brown bag in the crib outside. It's huh...It’s for you.” Dean scratches his ear nervously and grimacing when he realizes he had paint on his finger. Cas puts Jimmy on the ground near the clean wall, the kid concentrating on rolling his clear brush against it, while the angel goes to take the bag. 

Castiel comes back into the room with it. He notices from the corner of his eyes that Dean is being about as effective at painting the wall right now as Jimmy is, his attention clearly being on Castiel, despite what he’s pretending. 

The angel opens the bag and grabs the thing inside. Castiel smiles when he sees what the object is. It’s a yellow and black bee made of wood. There are two little plastic light bulbs dangling from its antennas. It’s not anatomically right, Cas can’t help but think, knowing better than to say it out loud (Dean is particularly touchy when he’s trying to be nice). It has a face with huge round eyes and a beatific smile. It’s very cute. Castiel likes it.

When he raises his eyes, Dean tries to act as if he’s very focused on his work again. He’s such an emotionally constipated doofus, Cas thinks, rolling his eyes affectionately. 

Jimmy seems intrigued by the new object, walking on all four to him before grabbing his pants to get up. Cas crutches down to show him the lamp and the baby immediately grabs it, hugging it to his chest with a squeal. It seems like Cas isn’t the only fan of bees in the family. 

Noticing the little sheet of paper that has fallen from the bag when he took out the lamp, Cas grabs it before Jimmy does. Cas looks it over distractedly, stabilizing his son’s still unassured steps as Jimmy goes back to his work on the wall, bee still clutched against him. 

Cas doesn’t pay him much mind though, eyes focused on what turned out to be the receipt for the lamp. More precisely, Cas is reading the date of purchase written on it. It’s dated the day before Cas left the bunker all those months ago, before Jimmy’s birth. To a time when Cas thought Dean wanted him out of his life after what happened between them...When in truth, Dean was going around buying bee lamps and paint for Cas’ room... 

Were they really both so oblivious?

The angel can’t help but feel sorrow at the thought of what could have happened if Dean had given him that lamp back then, if Castiel had realized that Dean truly wanted him in his life. Maybe then, Castiel would have dared to tell him he was pregnant, maybe he would have stayed. Where would they be now if that was the case? Would they still be by each other's side?

 _Yes_ , Castiel realized, suddenly. 

Of course they would. Things would have been different, maybe better, maybe worse, but at this moment there is no doubt in his mind that they would still be here, together, no matter what, raising their son. Life has tried to separate them so many times. Life, Heaven, Hell, and their own stupidity. Yet they still find their way to each other. They always will. 

“You okay, Cas?” Dean asks, sounding worried. Cas realized that he’s been satring at that receipt for way too long. His eyes are moist with emotions when he looks up at the hunter. 

“Thank you for the lamp, Dean. I love it.”

_I love you._

They haven’t said it yet. It seems so obvious, body and soul, that it should feel natural to say those words out loud, yet they haven’t. 

Dean blushes a little more, a smile tugging the corner of his lips and his soul nestling into Cas’ Grace. They don’t need to say it out loud, it’s all around them anyway. In green paint, blue eyes, little bee lamps and a perfect child that look like both of them. 

“I knew you would, Cas.”

  
  


*************

“Mister,” the zoo security lady asks as she warily watches Jimmy’s hair being pet by the baboon he was in the lap of, “could you explain to me again how your baby ended up _inside_ the monkey pen?”

************

“Sam, is that my son as your phone’s background, you big softie?” Dean teases, mocking.

“It’s _my_ nephew _._ ”

***********

“Hey, look, Cas, Jimmy learned to roast marshmallows _with his hands!”_

“Oh no.”

************

“First time in a month that we finally have some time to ourselves,” Dean declares excitedly, throwing his shirt away and dropping his pants at the same time, his feet catching in it in his rush to get to the bedside table. “You better believe that I’ll make sure we make the most of it,” he announces over his shoulder as he searches the drawer for the lube. 

“Dean…”

“You better be naked already, because I-”

“Blagabada!”

Dean closes the drawer. 

************

Sam and Dean look at the bunker’s kitchen, mouths agape. 

“It needed a remodel anyway,” Dean says, scratching his head. 

They both jump a foot backward when a part of the burnt out ceiling falls down. 

************

Dean opens one eye and groans, grumpy at having been woken up. 

“Are you really gonna take pictures every time I take a nap with my son?” the hunter grumbles, wincing at the sensation of Jimmy drooling on his collarbone as he sleeps. 

“Yes,” Castiel says, eyes watery as he snaps another photograph. 

************

“Gh-un!” Jimmy says in a hiccup. 

“Oh my god, Cas! Jimmy just said his first word! He said gun!”

“That is _not_ his first word,” Cas protests, scrunching his nose.

“Of course it is!”

“No, it’s not. A few days ago, he said ‘bagala’.” 

“That’s not a word, Cas.”

“Yes it is. It’s the name of a small town in Burkina Faso.”

“Oh my god, have you been looking up every nonsense word he’s said so far to try and find one that means something?”

“Yes.”

“Noun don’t count, Cas” Dean retorts.

“I won’t have my baby’s first word be ‘gun’, Dean.”

“Heh. Fair enough.”

They both look at Jimmy as he sucks on his own dirty sock. 

“He’s thirteen month old, shouldn’t he have said at least one coherent word already?”

“You know,” Cas reflects. “‘Dada’ is the name of a nihilistic artistic movement of the early 20th century founded on principles of irrationality, incongruity and irreverence toward accepted aesthetic criteria,” Cas explains. “Are you...Dean, are you _crying_?”

“My son is a genius,” Dean sniffs. 

“Guys, I’m pretty sure ‘dada’ is just Jimmy’s way of saying ‘daddy’,” Sam sighs. 

************

“Okay, whose idea was it to take Jimmy to the zoo again?”

Sam raises his hand with a grimace. “Look, I know the incident with the baboon was touch and go for a while, but I still think it’s good for Jimmy to see more of the world than this bunker,” Sam defends. 

“Yeah, well, congrats, uncle Dolittle, Jimmy loves animals now. Little word of advice, though, you should start by dealing with the tiger taking a nap on your bed, before you take care of the goats in the bathroom.”

  
  


************

“I thought angels didn’t sleep?”

“Well, they’ve obviously never had a toddler before.”

************

“Did you seriously ask Sam to find a way to nephilim-proof the toilets, Dean?”

“Pooping is a sacred moment between a man and his bowels.”

“Jimmy cried in front of your door for twenty minutes, what were you even doing in here?”

“It’s sacred, Cas, sacred!”

“You realize that instead of using those wards on the toilets, we could have just put them on our bed, right?”

“No. No, I did not realize that. Give me a minute,” Dean says. “SAM!”

  
  


************

“Okay, Cas, I have good news and bad news. Good news is, I found a very cute way to ask you to marry me. Bad news is, our son ate the ring.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're reading this, chances are you read the whole story. Did you like it? Take a few seconds and tell me if you did (or why you didn't). 
> 
> Thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to know what you thought, so leave a comment, a kudo or come find me [_on tumblr_](https://castielific.tumblr.com/)


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